Introductory Note: Earlier in the meeting, Vic mentioned a letter he had received and asked about dealing with it. Jason commented that he had not intended to; that they had all received the same e-mail; and that if Vic wanted to bring it up, that was OK. Vic riffled through his folder and said that it could come under New Business. Part of this post is the letter which Vic read, and part of it is the response to it.
Vic: We received a letter. Some names have been named here in this letter and I think we should address it.
The topics are the Land Use Committee, All Boards, and [a demand to] remove some Zoning members.
Blogger: The letter is given below.
From: Dawn Pechman [dawnpechman@windstream.net]
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2012 6:29 PM
To: 'Jason Carlton'; 'John Festa'
Subject: Land Use/Zoning township issues
Attachments: Zoning Commission_Land Use Handout 04122012.pdf
FAXED to Vic Grimm at number provided: 330-274-0146
Topics:
Land Use Committee
All Boards Meetings
Resignations and/or Hearing to Remove Zoning Commission Members
Trustees:
At the April 5 township trustee meeting a joint zoning commission meeting and Land Use Committee meeting was announced for 4/12 and an All Boards meeting for 4/26/2012.
During public comment portion of the meeting I requested the joint zoning commission with the Land Use Committee be cancelled as the Land Use Committee has not met since 2001 and for all intents and purposes is defunct, and as I cited Resolution 98-24 (Mantua Twp trustee minutes April 1998), the Land Use Committee is a township committee that comes under the trustees, not the zoning commission.
I also requested the scheduled All Boards meeting not be held. The All Boards meetings are something that came about this century; when held, are on the 5th Thursdays; and consists [sic] of The Board of Trustees, Board of Zoning Appeals, Zoning Commission and Zoning inspector. Technically, the zoning commission is not a board and neither is the zoning inspector. There should be no reason for these meetings.
My request to cancel these meetings was not addressed.
The combined Zoning Commission/Land Use Committee was held last night. Attached is the handout from that meeting. It is not the function of a defunct Land Use Committee to advise the Zoning Commission (who took ten plus years to rewrite the zoning resolution) how to plan for the future of Mantua Township. That function belongs to the residents of Mantua Township.
In the meeting held last night, the zoning commission exceeded the scope of their responsibility in several areas.
The All Boards meeting is being requested by the BZA to go over the new zoning resolution adopted December 2011. The more appropriate meeting would be a special township trustee meeting/workshop.
At this time, I am requesting the trustees:
1. Re-establish the Land Use Committee by advertising for people who are interested in serving on the
Land Use Committee or abolish it.
2. Change the All Boards meeting to a special trustee meeting to be held April 26.
3. Request the resignations of Zoning Commission members Lynn Harvey, Roger Hurd, Terri Vechery, Dave Pollard and Nick Ehlert. If they will not resign, the trustees hold the removal hearing.
I can be reached by email or telephone at 330-322-6035. Please let me know if you have questions and if resignations are not forthcoming what the process is for the removal hearing. Thank you.
[Blogger: I assume that the initials at the bottom of the letter are Dawn's.]
When Vic had finished reading the letter, Lynn Harvey, chair of the Zoning Commission, asked, "This letter is part of the public record now?"
Vic: Yes.
Lynn Harvey: I have a response to this or you can talk first.
Vic: The Zoning Commission is merely the one that calls the Land Use [Committee] to meet. Todd Peetz addressed this issue of "defunct"--some townships' [Land Use Committees] have not met for 15 or more years. As far as people still sitting on the board, there is still a quorum. I think we have addressed the All Boards meeting--we have always had one and have advertised it that way. As far as the resignations and removal hearing, that is in the new zoning book.
I don't know how the other trustees feel about it.
Jason: Whatever the situation with the Land Use plan, I am busy with the roads and cemetery. I appreciate that the Zoning Commission ran with that [Land Use]. I don't have time. I am constantly dealing with phone calls and other things.
As far as the resignations, Zoning Commission members are appointed by the trustees and have an obligation to serve their term. The trustees can call a hearing to remove, but according to the prosecutor, some kind of malfeasance or activity by which the person has been detrimental to the public [is necessary]. The trustees can not simply remove the member. The person has a right to have a hearing. A hired employee can be fired at w3ill.
The trustees can request resignations and people could go peacefully, but I don't think we are at a point where we should do that.
John Festa: No comments. Not really. There may be some merit in some of this, but I have not studied it enough to make an educated comment.
Lynn Harvey: Can I give my response to this?
Jason: Please be brief.
Lynn: Before I called the Land Use meeting, this had sort of come up and I called Chris Meduri before calling the meeting. I already had the go-ahead for the meeting. Chris Meduri said this: The Land Use Committee is called a Citizens Advisory Committee. It is not a statutory committee. It is not controlled by the Ohio Revised Code; it is not based on legal statute. That means we can do whatever we want with the Land Use Committee. Yes, it has been a long time since we have met, but I think we did not feel like calling them in and telling them that we were still doing the re-write.
The Zoning Commission controls this. It does not expire or become defunct.
This is all from Chris Meduri and he will put it in a letter if we are still being questioned here.
Regarding the All Boards meetings, the trustees call those. I would like to see them continue.
What is going on with the Zoning Commission is total harassment and Dawn Pechman has been doing this for at least 10 years. There is a file of all kinds of complaints [directed to and at the trustees and the township] which have no legal basis. Every one of these has been rebutted by our legal counsel. This is harassment. Why she does it you will have to ask her. The Zoning Commission is at some point perhaps going to give you [trustees] some advice during your term. What will it look like if there is a letter out there asking for the removal of 5/7 of the Zoning Commission? How are we going to function with this kind of divisiveness? I don't know what we can do to stop it. But this commission [Zoning] has never been taken to court or cited. The nature of zoning makes you unpopular because you sometimes have to say no to people. If that is what it's about, get used to it. These things go out into cyberspace and people believe it.
I want to be on record that this is harassment. I can have Chris Meduri write a letter about it.
Dawn: [Blogger: I have to get a recording of this, and it will NOT be from the private website. However, it is vintage Dawn and stuff that she has been saying ever since I began attending meetings in about 2004, so I will summarize until I can get a recording and insert those statements--I will not call them information--here.]
First, Dawn agreed with Lynn about divisiveness. [What she left out is that she herself has been a major source of it for years. But if anyone identifies her responsibility in any problem or situation, she goes into Whirlpool Corporation spin mode and picks up as little as a single word--as here--to piggy back onto and "agree" with the speaker.]
Next, Dawn launched into her standard refrain about all being one township and needing to communicate with each other, [and that is exactly the purpose of the All Boards meeting; does anyone else remember how, after 9/11, the most popular phrase was "connect the dots" which hadn't been done because various entities hadn't communicated with each other?]
Continuing, Dawn said that we have the right to see records and ask questions. She mentioned someone who in 1998 (!) was having trouble getting records. [She has requested and seen THOUSANDS of records and has asked the same questions time after time after time. The answers haven't changed because the facts haven't changed, despite Dawn's allegation in a meeting that facts change. Not that I've noticed, they don't. Gravity still works: do an arabesque out a tenth-floor window, and you go splat at the end of the flight. Eat junk food, and you get fat. Stiff your lawyer, and you lose the house.]
[Blogger: Chronologically, the next event in the meeting was a discussion of the website legal policy. I am going to give part of public comment here because it is directly related to what is posted above.]
Dave Pollard: First, I would like to thank the trustees [for] accepting my offer to salvage the demolished [cemetery] shed. If I had been able to get to the [last] meeting [in time] I would have given you $300 and counted it a bargain. Less than 2% of that wood in that building showed any weakness. I wish you would think things over more thoroughly the next time you dispose of township property that can be reused.
Dave, continuing: Five of us have been named for removal. Malfeasance was used, so our names have been linked with that.
Dave asked for the reason to be given--for the trustees to ask Dawn to give her reasons.
Jason wanted to have that done after the meeting.
Dave: No, Jason, this was brought out in public and we have a right to know in public. I think we have the right to know in public.
Jason to Dawn: Do you have a brief response?
Dawn: The last line is it. [Blogger: I just scrolled back up and looked. Nada.] Dawn continued: I have been trying to talk to people for a long time and this was my last action. [???]
[Blogger: Two things. First, the law states that we have the right to know who accuses us and also the right to know the charges. Dawn skated on this one. Again.
Second, why those five people? Answer: Each one of them has opposed Dawn or criticized Jason. Except for Nick Ehlert. Apparently his crime is that he read a letter supporting the use and restoration of the school. In addition to their opposition and criticism, each of those people has demonstrated leadership.]
About This Blog
The purpose of this blog is to give an accurate account of what is said during Public Comment at Mantua Township Trustees meetings.
Trustees' decisions are in the official minutes, available on request from the Mantua Township Fiscal Officer, Jodi Thompson, at 330-274-8443. The Township charges 10 cents per page. FAX, 330-274-8447. E-mail, fiscalofficer@mantuatownshipohio.gov. The minutes are also posted on the website after they have been approved. That means that there is usually a two-week lag between a given meeting and the minutes being available to read on the website.
Since meetings are the first and third Thursdays of the month, there is a three-week wait during months with five Thursdays.
Other items of interest or the writer's opinions will be included from time to time, clearly identified.
This is not a forum or chat room, but a source of information, so it is closed to outside input.
During the time I have been doing the blog, the posts have expanded to become very detailed accounts of the meetings. Doing that is time consuming, to say the least, and I am going to try to return to the public comment focus, with background and perspective (and the occasional pointed editorial comment). Such additions are usually enclosed in brackets. However, since some extended accounts of the meetings reveal significant things--and character--better than I could by commenting, there will probably still be a fair amount of semi-transcript. (Sigh.)
My thanks to the readers who have found the blog, and to the ones who from time to time tell me that they value it. You have encouraged me when the tedious work of keyboarding has made me wonder why I am doing this. Then you have reminded me, and I am grateful.
Trustees' decisions are in the official minutes, available on request from the Mantua Township Fiscal Officer, Jodi Thompson, at 330-274-8443. The Township charges 10 cents per page. FAX, 330-274-8447. E-mail, fiscalofficer@mantuatownshipohio.gov. The minutes are also posted on the website after they have been approved. That means that there is usually a two-week lag between a given meeting and the minutes being available to read on the website.
Since meetings are the first and third Thursdays of the month, there is a three-week wait during months with five Thursdays.
Other items of interest or the writer's opinions will be included from time to time, clearly identified.
This is not a forum or chat room, but a source of information, so it is closed to outside input.
During the time I have been doing the blog, the posts have expanded to become very detailed accounts of the meetings. Doing that is time consuming, to say the least, and I am going to try to return to the public comment focus, with background and perspective (and the occasional pointed editorial comment). Such additions are usually enclosed in brackets. However, since some extended accounts of the meetings reveal significant things--and character--better than I could by commenting, there will probably still be a fair amount of semi-transcript. (Sigh.)
My thanks to the readers who have found the blog, and to the ones who from time to time tell me that they value it. You have encouraged me when the tedious work of keyboarding has made me wonder why I am doing this. Then you have reminded me, and I am grateful.
Principles
Two ideas guide and support me:
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
______Attributed to Edmund Burke
GOOD PREVAILS.
Those ideas are also the reason I have been doing the blog since late February 2011.
I have discovered that a transcript is almost impossible to do and that verbatim accounts are usually not absolutely necessary. When in doubt, I check against a recording.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
______Attributed to Edmund Burke
GOOD PREVAILS.
Those ideas are also the reason I have been doing the blog since late February 2011.
I have discovered that a transcript is almost impossible to do and that verbatim accounts are usually not absolutely necessary. When in doubt, I check against a recording.
