Avon Lake's public record, made legible.
A resident-built accountability project that turns the city's budgets, council votes, safety data, and the lakefront redevelopment into a record you can actually read — every figure carrying its source document.
Four questions residents keep asking — with the numbers behind each.
Pick a track to open its evidence. The stamp on each card is its lifecycle state, not a score: corroborated means it survived review, records requested means the primary document is not yet in hand, open means asserted and not yet corroborated.
Every dollar the city raised in 2023
Half of the city's general revenue is a single line: the 1.50% municipal income tax. Property tax is the second pillar. The rest is grants, investment income, and fees.
Receipt · City of Avon Lake 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, governmental-activities revenue · retrieved 2026-07-16 · 6 lines · income tax was 49.5% of general revenue and fell 4.95% from 2022. Verify →
- Security (police & fire) $13.9M
- Transportation $12.4M
- General gov't $5.4M
- Leisure $2.4M
- Other $1.6M
Total governmental expenses $35.66M; water & sewer utilities add $22.2M more as separate enterprise funds. Citywide net position rose $4.72M to $144.3M.
Who represents Avon Lake
A seven-member council — four wards and three at-large seats — plus the mayor. Regular meetings are open to the public and livestreamed; this is where the lakefront votes happened.
| Member | Seat |
|---|---|
| Mark Spaetzel | Mayor · elected 2025 |
| David Kos | Ward 4 · Pres. pro tem |
| Rob Shahmir | Ward 1 |
| Jennifer Fenderbosch | Ward 2 |
| Amy Gentry | Ward 3 |
| Matthew Reynolds | At-large |
| Geoff Smith | At-large |
| Kayla Goodwin | At-large |
- Regular council 2nd & 4th Mon
- Committee 1st & 3rd Mon
Council Chambers, 2nd floor of City Hall, 150 Avon Belden Road. Meetings are broadcast on Avon Lake Community Television and livestreamed on the city's Facebook page. Every ordinance and roll-call is published in the agenda packets and minutes.
- Per-member roll-call tallies — published in each meeting's minutes; we link, we don't retype.
- Committee attendance rates over the full term.
A consistently low-crime city — but the latest report isn't public yet
Independent analyses of FBI data rank Avon Lake safer than roughly four in five U.S. municipalities, and the local index eased again into 2024. The honest gap: the police department's own 2023–2025 annual reports are not yet posted online.
Receipt · NeighborhoodScout and City-Data analyses of FBI UCR data; spending figure from the 2023 ACFR · retrieved 2026-07-16 · a ranking is not a clearance rate. Crime data → · ALPD reports →
A safety score without current calls-for-service and clearance data is a headline, not accountability. We are requesting the missing years rather than estimating them.
- 2023, 2024 & 2025 ALPD annual reports
- Calls for service by type
- Response-time distribution
- Case clearance rates
- Traffic-stop demographics
- Body-cam & records policy
The former power-plant site — and Lake Erie beyond it
The city's biggest land decision in a generation: acquiring lakefront acreage from a remediated 43.23-acre power-plant site for a public park, while the lake itself faces a lengthening algal-bloom season.
Receipt · City of Avon Lake economic-development page and 2026 council actions; NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory 2025 bloom review · retrieved 2026-07-16 · a projected close is not a closing. Site updates →
- Site parcels
- Proposed public area
- Existing land
The city's biggest land decision, stated as the record states it.
Five stages, from resident priority to delivery. Four are on record. The fifth — delivery — is not, and this page will not fill it in with a projection. Authorization is not payment, and a signed agreement is not a closing.
Five stages, from resident priority to delivery.
Every stage links to the public record it rests on.
Priority
Residents raise needs and ideas.
ActiveCommitment
Leaders state positions.
On recordAction
Council takes formal action.
2 votes takenFunding
Purchase authorized & contracted.
AuthorizedDelivery
Close, remediate, build park.
Not on recordWhat is actually documented, and when
Purchase authorized
November — council authorized Mayor Spaetzel to enter a purchase agreement with ALERG for roughly 23 acres of the former power-plant site.
Rezoning & overlay approved
May 18 — council rezoned the site to a Special Commerce District (B-3) and established a Lakefront Mixed-Use Overlay (LMU-O, Chapter 1219) setting permitted, conditional, and prohibited uses.
Anticipated closing
End 2026 to early 2027 — the Purchase & Sale Agreement anticipates closing once terms are met, including environmental remediation to Ohio EPA standards.
Receipt · City of Avon Lake economic-development page and 2026 council agenda packets · retrieved 2026-07-16 · 3 recorded actions · an anticipated date is not an event. Record →
City planners have floated a mix of public and private uses. None is final; the overlay sets the envelope, not the buildings.
- Public lakefront park
- Marina
- Restaurants
- Multi-story housing
- Hotel
- Final acquisition & remediation cost to the city
- Extent of guaranteed public access
- Private investment & phasing
- Long-term maintenance responsibility
- Post-remediation environmental monitoring
Priority → commitment → action → record
| Date | Resident priority | What leaders committed | What council did | Public record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2025 | Protect public lake access and open space on the lakefront. | City would pursue acquiring the lakefront acreage for a public park. | Authorized the mayor to enter a purchase agreement with ALERG. | Council packet → |
| Mar 25, 2026 | A say in what gets built on the site. | Public input to shape the redevelopment. | Redevelopment planning advanced; resident input process opened. | News report → |
| May 18, 2026 | A walkable lakefront with mixed-use and open-space protections. | Overlay to balance development with public access. | Rezoned to B-3 and approved the Lakefront Mixed-Use Overlay (Ch. 1219). | Agenda pack → |
Nothing here is asserted without a document behind it.
Every figure on this page traces to one of these primary or independent sources. Where a source is missing, we say so.
| Document | What it holds | Open |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report | City of Avon Lake — revenue, spending, net position, population. | → |
| Power-plant site updates | City of Avon Lake — acreage, zoning, remediation, timeline. | → |
| Council roster & agendas | City of Avon Lake — members, seats, meeting schedule, packets. | → |
| May 18, 2026 council agenda pack | Rezoning & Lakefront Mixed-Use Overlay action. | → |
| 2025 mayoral election result | Chronicle-Telegram — Spaetzel 69.3% over Zuber. | → |
| Crime rankings | NeighborhoodScout & City-Data, from FBI UCR data. | → |
| ALPD annual reports | Avon Lake Police — latest posted is 2022; 2023–25 pending. | → |
| Lake Erie 2025 bloom review | NOAA GLERL — severity index 6.5/10, season length. | → |
| Redevelopment reporting | WKYC / Cleveland 19 / News 5 — proposed uses, resident input. | → |
Built as a public record should look: plain, sourced, durable.
One green ramp carries structure and data; a highlighter yellow is rationed to four roles; a serif speaks, a sans explains, and a mono cites. Nothing on this page uses a colour outside that family.
--canvas
--evidence
--action
--mark
--status-pending
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The lakefront decision file
Charis SIL — self-hosted, 28 KB, OFL 1.1
Every figure on this page traces to a primary or independent source, and states its limits.
IBM Plex Sans — self-hosted variable, 40 KB, OFL 1.1
$17,112,354 · 6–1–0
SF Mono / ui-monospace — a system face
Full tokens, posture rules and anti-patterns live in DESIGN.md, with the wiring in IMPLEMENTATION.md and the review cards in preview/.