Blogger Foreword: This post contains most of public comment. What remains needs to be as close as possible to a transcript and is long enough, if I remember correctly, to warrant its own post.
Also: This post contains much comment about the proposed savings regarding insurance premiums. I know right now that the numbers mentioned need to be checked and corrected if necessary, but this is what was said. I added something including numbers based on what I remember from earlier minutes and an earlier post. I will check the actual figures and dedicate a separate post to that information.
Public Comment began at 9:15.
Mark Hall, Loris Avenue: Mark asked a question about a correction to the meeting minutes from 1-24 and then proceeded.
Earlier when you were talking about the Zoning Book, whether it is recorded is not a function of validity; it is 30 days after the Board of Trustees approves of the changes.
Chagrin River Watershed Partnership: In the past, if your concern is ability to pay, there have been offers from other members to pay so members can participate.
Insurance: The pay increases given--was that to cover the cost of the insurance out of the pockets of the road workers?
Jason: We have been talking about taking a look at the health insurance--if we deducted 10% per year you needed to cover what you are deducting and give a raise.
Mark: So what is the cost savings? We are paying in wages and covering the employees' contribution, so there is no savings.
Jason: Correct, the first year. The second year you will have newly elected officials at the beginning of a new term. [Blogger note: Compensation and benefits for any elected official cannot change during the term. However, the regulations re-set at each election. So the trustees who will begin new four-year terms in 2014 will be bound by this 10% give-back.]
Mark: So you are planning on the savings coming from the elected officials only.
Jason went into an explanation of that and the voluntary participation. Then: I anticipate right now that down the road there will be savings.
Mark: So the cost savings will come from the elected officials only, not from all participants.
Answer: Yes.
Mark: That answers the question.
[Blogger: A previous post has already indicated what this voluntary 10% give-back would cost the elected officials right now: Almost nothing for Jason, and a lot for both Vic and Marie. So that's #1 on my "Say what?" questions about this.
Second: Look at the realities here: Only Vic and Jason are up for election in 2013. Vic and Mike Richards pay the same health care premium each month, so if Vic were to give back that 10%, that would cover only Mike's premium. Jason's contribution would not cover the amount of Brian's and Dan's 10%. This whole thing bears closer analysis, which it will get. Stay tuned.
Oh. Yes, I know that I did not mention Marie's give-back here. Would you voluntarily give up something like $3,000 per year--the highest sacrifice of the group--while someone else lost only $300? And remember--the trustees do not make as much as the lowest paid road crew worker.
Third: I know that household budgets are not the same as those those for government and public entities. But does anyone spend money in advance of anticipated savings? Maybe Washington, and we all know how well that works.]
Linda Ehlert, Pioneer Trail: I understand that you are getting estimates on the Center school and I know you are not looking at replacing windows now. This is a form of an interior story window that has been approved for historic restoration. Linda had a sample and said it could be installed by our own contractors.
Linda, continuing: I highlighted [on a handout] what can be saved by using this product. The acrylic interior storm window is three times more insulative than glass. This is something you can look at and can do perhaps one floor at a time.
Nate Adams says that high performance storm windows perform at 1/3 the cost. This could save money on heating and will not destroy the look of the structure.
Ellen Monroe, Wayne Road: I want to bring to everyone's attention that I have personally rented the annex for 6 consecutive Tuesdays beginning on March 6 for various community activities. Anyone who wants to try out what we could do with the school, this is an opportunity. I hope you will spread the word.
The Villager had a very nice article about it.
[Blogger Note: The Record Courier ran Ellie's letter in the Letters to the Editor, also, and an earlier blog post, "Tuesdays with Ellie," describes her plan as well.]
Roger Hurd, Center Road: I would like to comment on the CRWP. They are able to give us zoning language that I doubt that Soil and Water [in Ravenna] can give us because of their experience throughout Northeastern Ohio. It is a good investment, at least for the next year.
Cal Brant, Wayne Road: Do we have a kind of outline of a plan for what is going to take place in the cupola and [with] the shutters--what we are going to find.
Jason: When you actually take them off, you have something different than what they look like when they are on. Hopefully what we set aside will help on the exterior. We have to look at the ventilation. We don't know what we are looking at until we get into it.
[Blogger: Translation: There is no plan. This is a discovery process, as seems to be true of working on any old building. Anyone who has set about to do any kind of remodeling and repairs understands that as the nature of the beast. But not "having a plan" for the school building was howled about at great length and volume. What's the difference?]
Cal: Do we have any technical advice or are we assuming that this will be rectified with opinions? How are we going to go about the problem we are dealing with? I have suggested getting an engineering firm in here.
Jason: I don't think an engineering firm is in the budget. Every contractor we have talked to had a different view of it. [Blogger: A different opinion?] We are not going to know once we paint this building whether it has been any good or not for 10 years. [!]
Cal: For $500 we can get an engineering firm rather than spending thousands.
Dave Pollard, S.R. 82: You have heard my opinion on CRWP.
Getting to what Mark Hall said about insurance: originally it was going to be a 15% contribution from the road crew's wages to save insurance costs. At that figure, it would be a cumulative $2.06/hr. Their raise amounts to $2.50/hr. So in a standard week, they will cost us more.
Changing it to 10% means that the reduction in their wages is $1.38/hr. and the raise equals $1.12/hr.
If Mr. Festa and his wife take this, that will add more to the township's budget. There is no savings even if he and everyone up there contributes 10%.
Marie makes the most of the elected officials. Her 10% is going to be $1100/year.
This plan means we are paying out more. There is no savings. I am not complaining about the road workers' wages. But this was promoted to save money and it is no savings. But you are reluctant to spend $1,000 for CRWP, which gives us a lot of help and will continue to do so.
Jason: It is already in place. I don't know of any place that pays 100% of premiums and deductible. You are getting a Cadillac package. Our road crew's wages are lower than other townships.
Overall, I don't see us spending more money, I look at it as an added benefit.
[Blogger: Eh? In Washington, what President Obama calls "investment," the other side calls "spending."]
Jason, continuing: Once the newly elected official come in, they will be contributing and we will save then. As a board, that is what we decided. Our road crew gives us excellent service; we have 37 miles of road. I can justify 3 guys all day every day without any concern whatsoever. In another year this will be realized.
[Note: But Marie has said plainly that we cannot sustain the third person full time past the end of 2012. So is Jason's lack of concern a lack of concern for the fiscal health of the township?]
Dan Cozzens: The excavator is a good idea. As for the grader, put a reserve on it. The road crew is doing an excellent job and they are probably not paid enough. Dan asked about the elected officials' pay, and Jason got the figures and read them. Those figures are in an earlier post for this year, and they are also in the minutes for the first meetings of this year, January 10.
Those minutes are posted on the Township's official website, mantuatownshipohio.gov
[Blogger: Right now, a whole bunch of numbers are flying around about salaries and benefits and savings or not. I have said one thing and Dave another, based on what we remember or have in our notes and what we understand of the plan. I know that during the meeting Dave was calculating on the back of the agenda to come up with what he said. I will research this and do a separate blog post on only this topic with the figures from Marie--the only person at the front table and probably the only one in the room with a CPA, and the one with the best understanding of the budget.]
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.
