Did Tiffin City Council Members Ignore Citizens at Meeting?

On March 24th after politely listening to the many Citizen objections on the Tiffin University's Ordinance 07-70, Tiffin City Council concluded the meeting by again allowing Paul Marion, President of Tiffin University to have the last say. By saying "You can't please everyone", Dr. Marion dismissed the concerns that neighborhood property owners expressed:

• Neighborhood property owners lose the use of Jackson Street and parking will be eliminated.
  

• There are NO safety issues on file at city hall, and even the Tiffin City Engineer agrees that his observations conclude "NO SAFETY ISSUES", but TU keeps saying "Safety of pedestrians is the primary reason for the ordinance".

• The Private Monaco Family Home will be land-locked into the Tiffin University Campus, thus encouraging Tiffin University to force another Eminent Domain Action in the future.

• Eleven (11) large, mature, shade trees will be destroyed.

• Tiffin University's Miami Street Improvement Plan (2005) still includes closing the Wall Street Railroad Crossing Intersection.

• Council Members (such as Arron Montz) assert publicly that TU's project should take precedence over the few individual citizen rights because it "benefits" Tiffin as a whole. If this is true, why won't City Council or the Mayor say publicly the EXACT "benefits" Tiffin Citizens would receive?
  

So, as the meeting broke up, I asked council "How does a normal citizen have any influence with City Council?" Both Paul Elchert, President of Council and Lori Ritzler, 3rd Ward Council Member, chided me. They both asserted that Tiffin "Citizens are not interested enough to show up at Council meetings, so why should we listen to people who are not bothering to come?" They said that the turn-out for council meetings is seldom more than one or two normal citizens. Mr. Elchert said he would be over-joyed to see so many citizens that he'd "have to rent the Columbian high school auditorium." So, using my cell-phone, within 30 minutes of the meeting's close, I already had a pledge from 10 people to show up at the next meeting and speak-out. My prediction is that having even one or two dozen people speak out will have NO affect on council voting. If I can get a lot more people, will Council be influenced by them? Or, did Paul Elchert and Lori Ritzler spout empty rhetoric? Will Elchert, Ritzler, Cline and Montz be approving of Paul Marion's intent to ignore the neighborhood citizens? Who benefits from such actions such as Tiffin University's Miami Street Project? I'm interested in an answer.

Joe Monaco
Tiffin, Ohio Voter