Public Comment 2/3/11, Part 2

Graham Harmon, 11793 Center Road, 11081 S.R. 44, 11915 S.R. 44
I am not going to tell you I have lived in the community for my whole life because it would make some of you guys feel really old.  I have been in business for 23 years.  There are some things, coming to a few of these meetings, that really concern me as the direction the township is going.  I realize that you guys as trustees are under the gun all the time and it is pretty much a thankless job and you have to put up with stupid comments from us people as the public and public speakers.  However, there are some things that really concern me and I hate to put you under the gun but I guess I have to.

Jason came around on the campaign and knocked on my door and showed up at my house and said, "I am going to run for township trustee."  He handed me a flyer and in that flyer were a couple of things that I noticed.  He said, "I feel like I have fresh ideas that could benefit the township.  I would like to start an informal website to get the information out about  what the township is doing and  their accomplishments..  I want to listen and work with the community to better the township."

I thought that was a great idea, so I voted for him.  I came to a few of these meetings and last week Mark in public comment when Alan [Brugmann] asked you why you wanted to be a township trustee and your answer was that you enjoy it.  I think that it is great that you enjoy it but also that part of the enjoyment of being a trustee is that you need to remember that you  have a responsibility to the taxpayers and you need to listen to what the taxpayers are saying.  A lot of the ideas that Jason has brought to the table and that he has campaigned about that I have sat in these meetings, you two have regularly voted no against.  I would kind of like to know why.

A website is a great idea.  As a business owner I wanted to promote my business.  I am absolutely computer illiterate--I am a dummy.  I am a hillbilly.  I don't know how to do computers.  I contacted a couple of people [and] for $90.00 a year we have a website.  You can go onto our website and we list our labor rates; we have jobs that we took from the very beginning that were totally smashed and we have them in different stages--you can see them from start to finish.  We have a place where people can put comments.  We can respond to those comments [and] we can [post] those comments.  It is a great interaction with our customer base.

The same thing for you guys.  You have been working on the Center School.  You can use that as a vital tool to promote the work that you are doing so that you don't have people in here putting you under the gun all the time.  I have sat on several buildting committees mostly with Crestwood Schools; I was there when the school [system?] evaluated these elementary buildings.  Mantua Center School was the absolute worst building the Crestwood school system had.  It was deemed not fit to educate kids.  It wasn't fair to the taxpayers to put any money into that for education.  Yet the township purchased that building and we are going to try to do something that has already not been cost effective.  Jerry Carlton bought the Village school.  It cost him $1-1/2 million to renovate it before they moved into it.  That didn't count the actual purchase of the building.  Usually when you go into a project like this you purchase a building and [if] it involves taxpayers' money the first thing you do is form a committee.  That committee would consist of 6-8 people.  There might be several business owners, there might be some educators, it might be somebody from zoning, it might be a trustee, it might be your clerk.  Typically the job of that committee is to do an outreach in the community and find out what they really feel the need for that building is.

Jason suggested a survey and you guys didn't even discuss it.  The gymnasium over there, I 100% agree that the township needs a place to have these meetings and a place for an ofice for Marie that is accessible so you don't have to go to her house to get information.  That building in my opinion right now, that's what we should be doing, is doing the township offices over there in that school system to where you could have these meetings so that when someone walks in the door, [he] doesn't have everyone turn around and look to see who is coming in the building.  I just wonder as far as the gymnasium if you look at Ravenna it's I believe it's the armory building down there.  They put a rec center down there.  They have Nautilus weights.  It was opened up to the community in a matter of no time.  They charge people that live in that community a very minimal rate, they can come in, they can work out, they have a llittle walking track in there.  I just wondered if anything like that would have been considered.  You could have probably gotten some input like that  if you went out to the community and reached to those people.

Mark Hall:  Graham, not to cut you short, but you are going over . . .

Graham:  Interrupted:  I am almost done.

Mark:  You are over your five minutes, Graham.

Graham:  Well, I have gotten two other -- I am speaking for my wife and Gina.

Mark:  No, you are speaking for yourself.

Graham:  I own five properties in this townsship that I pay taxes on and I am not done.  I don't come to these meetings and ever [?]/never[?] speak and I am going to take advantage of this time right now, Mark.  I have two more things.  I appreciate the time. . .

Mark:  Graham. . . .We do have a time limit that everybody is to follow.  I'm sorry.  We are going to move on.

Graham:  Well, are you going to answer any of my questions?  Do you want me to go back and go through it?

Mark:  I heard a lot of statements.  I did not hear . . .

Graham (interrupting):  Well, my one question was why you and Vic whenever Jason brings up anmy of his ideas to promote this township to get us out of the Mayberry RFD era, why did you two always vote no?

Vic:  I don't think we always vote no, Graham.

Graham:  Anything to update you have, his idea for the website, he brought up suggestions about time cards for the employees, you voted that down, the idea of the survey, you wouldn't even bring it up for discussion.
NOTE:  Vic tried to respond, but Graham talked over him.

Vic:  It's been discussed many times, Graham.  Just like everything you brought up has been discussed many times.

Graham:  It has?

Vic:  Yes, it has.

Graham:  You went out and reached out to the community to find out what they would want to do with that school?

Vic:  We didn't go out, but we looked into a study when we first--even before we bought the school.

Graham: What was the cost of renovation on that building?

Vic:  There  was no projected  cost in that proposal of what it was going to cost.  It was done by another architect at the time in 2003, I believe.

Graham:  Interrupted:  Neither was intelligible for a sentence or two because of the interruption.
Continued:  What are we going to pay for this?  Where is all the money going to come from to renovate the whole building?  Are we putting a bond issue out?  How are we going to pay for the renbovations on the whole building?

Vic:  We haven't put a bond issue out.  We have been paying for it all along.  You know we had meetings and everyone said to go for grants and we went and got grants.  We approached everything that we could and went for grants and you are absolutely right.  The number 1 object  [tenant] for that building from the very start is for Mantua  Township.  So it's  been discussed.  That's what we purchased it for--all the other items like the gymnasium fall under assembly.  That  was one section.  One section falls under busines, which is for the offices for the township.  The other section falls under education, which means that we have to stay with part of the building as education for all of this compliance.

Graham:  OK.  I can appreciate that--so you go get drawings to do each phase of that building, so you have drawings.

Vic--We have, and yes, several, so far.

Graham: What is the  total cost of that porject?

Vic:  Just like this evening, as we went through this plumbing and stuff--there was a projected cost for the phase for the gym, and that had a  contingency in it.  This was done by the architect.,  This is a 15% contingency in it, and the total was $104,875.

Graham:  That was for the gymn?

V:  That was for this annex area, and this involved the outside area site work for parking and everything.  That came in at $43,125 on the estimate.  We had it done for $22,152.  Just like tonight, the electrical work was estimated at $19,895.  We had three bids tonight on the electrical work that were much under that.

Vic:  Plumbing:  $8,050.  All the bids of the plubming came in under that.  So we have been very responsible with the taxpayers' money. 

Graham--interrupted:  I'm not saying you not being responsible, but what I am sayinmg is - --

Vic:  What I'm trying to do, Graham, is we are trying to get a central location and this is what I have said all along.  If we can get a central location, when we  have an office,  that is  the time to put in the website.  Right now, we are all working out of our own homes or our own offices.

Graham:  Shouldn't that be kind  of your main concern right now is the offices and do that?  I guess the thing that scares me as a taxpayer is that you guys purchased this building somewhere around June of 2004, correct, or July?

Vic:  Probably closer to August.

Graham:  You started the building project around 2006.  I am not sure when.

Vic:  Somewhere around there because it took a while for the first permits because we went for the education--we wanted to stay with the education. Iit was the most strict.  We stayed with that to get in and that's what we started with.

Graham:  I am nust wondering if--be patient with me--I haven't been coming to meetings and I want to know for myself--typically when you do a project like this and as I said I have sat on a lot of these committees--you find out first what and you obviously know what you want to do.  You want township offices.  You know I would like to see a rec center, a gym, whatever--you have your idea about a gym.

Vic:  That's assembly.  The gymnasium falls under assembly.

Graham:  And you have your education in the bottom [of the building]..

Vic:  Education would cover that section at this time, but it can be extended to other parts, but the assembly part falls under multipurpose use, which you are saying like a rec center or we thought  because of the kitchen another use was for emergency shelter if we were to have an emergency because we have the kitchen.  The Fire Department most likely is not going to be able to handle Shalersville, Mantua Village, and Mantua Township, but if they were to bring a squad  up here, we know if we had a generator we would be self-contained.  We have water, we have sewer, we have electricity, and if we had a generator, and that is something we looked into with all these Homeland Security grants, but most of that stuff goes to fire and police before it goes anywhere else.  So the gymnasium is a multipurpose section--the main thing is we would love to see everybody in that building to vote so that we are not separated. 

At one time we voted in this building [Township Hall] and  in the Civic Center.  We worked  hard last year to get two of the three precincts  back into the Civic Center to meet the ADA requirements.  That's the gymnasium--we could have everybody in there.  That's why we set up the parking the way that we did and everything like that.  Things have been going really well.  We went after a NOPEC grand and received $50,000, and there may be a Stage 2 that we will apply for that.  Not only  would that go for a second NOPEC grant for the gym, but also to apply to this building.

Graham:  In your opinion, Vic, what is the first priority in that building and second priority--I mean you are
looking at this as a 3-phase project and you started on it in '06.  This is 2011 [and] you're still not done and then you're going to go into phase 2--you're just going to carry it out for years?

Vic:  No.  I believe we are in phase 2.  We have a permit--

Graham:  Interrupting:  What is Phase 1?

Vic:  Phase 1 would be the education.

G:  And that's not done yet.
V:  No. 
G:  Phase 2 is what? 
V:  Phase 2 is the gymnasium and annex area. 
G.:  And you are going to wait to do your offices last?
V:  That is the business [use]; out of the 3 that is supposed to be the easiest.
G:   Really.
V:  That's what we have been told.  Now we have a rapport with Portage County [the Building Department], there has been a change down there and things have worked in our favor with that change.  We are proceeding very well--we didn't get the OK on the prints for Phase 2 until October and before the end of November, we had the parking lot put in and handicapped parking and all that.  That's what we are proceeding with, the electrical and the plumbing for that area.

Graham:  OK, so you got Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, and you're getting bids on Phase 1 now, which is your education portion, but you have no idea what the whole three phases together are going to cost the township.

Vic:  Not at this time.

Graham:  How are you going to finance that?

Vic:  Well, the building itself we financed through a lease-purchase agreement.

Graham:  Well, I guess you are just planning on continually dragging this out year after  year after year as you go.  Are you eventually going to say "Let's get this project done and put a bond issue on . . ."get it done and finish it so the community can use ir or what . . .

Vic:  We should be finished with Phase 2 in the spring and can start using the gymnasium.  Then the other permit, we hope to be Phase 1, we look to be done with that before April so those two portions we can be using this year.

G:  I'm done, Mark.  Sorry.

Public speaking time limit is 5  minutes per person.  Graham took 17 minutes.