9-5-13--Township Hall, Insurance, Mostly Incisive Public Comment

Following the motion to utilize Regional Planning to conduct and facilitate community discussions regarding the school, there was discussion about internet service at the school building, health insurance costs, new business, and the ongoing problems of fixing a driveway and dealing with the culvert promises.  Public comment followed all of that.
The post is now (9-19) complete, but not proofread.  The meeting tonight promises to be very interesting.

John Festa brought up Internet service at the school, which has been somewhat problematical.  He said that DSL Windstream was the only service that could be provided.

Marie:  You have got to be kidding.  They flat out told me before that they could not do it.

 There was discussion about having a hot spot for service @ $54.47/mo.

Marie:  The business department said they can and the service department said they do not service the area.

John Festa also brought up health insurance, and there was much discussion about that.  If John Festqa and his wife went on the township's plan, the total cost would be $104,993 per year.  [In the past the benefits package compensated to a certain extent for the lower pay than private sector salaries for the road crew.  However, that figure was pretty sobering.]

Several expressions of "outrageous" were uttered during the conversation.  Marie added that the premium went up 19%, but that it had not increased last year.  Apparently companies are anticipating the effects of Obamacare.  Jason referred again to having the road crew pay 10% of their premiums themselves.  Various companies were mentioned.
The application for insurance has to be in by the next day, and John Festa stated that you can't not pay for  health insurance.
The cut in funds to small and local governments by Columbus adds to the difficulties--costs are increasing but our revenue is decreasing.  Marie added that as a reult of that, everyone at the front table took a pay cut.

Jason:  I proposed to the board to take a 10% cut.  I did that, and so did the road crew.
John Festa said he thought that was admirable.
Jason thought we needed to figure this out.  Starting this month, our rate is $7500/month.

The trustees and Marie all took pay cuts earlier in the year.

New Business

Vic had gotten a call from someone about using the Township Hall during the day for a Girl Scout  troop 
There was a little discussion about that, and the consensus was that permission to use the building could be given.  The woman who had the group did not think it would ever go over 10. 

Blogger:   Stopping point on 3/18; resumed 3/19.

Vic continued on Township Hall updates, saying:  I talked to Reuben Byler about where he was on the building.  He has ordered some more vents, and all of the shutters are down.  Two will have to be made up.  His price is less than a quote from Baird Brothers a year ago.  Vic thought that maybe the additional for the replacement shutters might fall into the offer from the Mantua Historical Society and The Mantua Restoration Society.  To date, Mr. Byler's work has come to $975.  His total  initial bid was $1280.

[Blogger:  Well, as they say on TV, breaking news!  Here is more complete information about the shutters.
A bid from Baird Brothers from July 2, 2012, quotes $220 each for 8 shutters for the cupola, total $1760. 
Mr. Byler originally quoted between $190 and $195 each for two shutters.  He has completed that work at a cost of $414, using Spanish cedar just as Baird would have. Details will follow after tonight's trustees meeting.]
 
Vic has also talked to another man about painting but will hold that quote for now.
 
John Festa has a revised quote that takes into consideration all the paint.

Vic's quote would need for the township to provide $250 worth of plastic to put down because the actual painting had not yet been figured out.

This man and Mr. Byler both have Worker's Comp and insurance.

Jason reported on chip and seal.  The contractor will probably hand deliver the  bill, which Marie said she needed by the Friday before the meeting.
There was mention of the study and meeting(s) with residents about the Center school that Todd Peetz will do.

John Festa said he had talked with a couple of people about bonds and had contacted  Squires and Sanders, the firm that refinanced the bond for the fire station.  They will send a "get started" brochure.  Perhaps Chris Meduri could be the bond counsel for the Township.  Two of the firms could handle the whole process.

Jason asked about cost, and the reply was that costs would be included in the proposals.

In "Other," Vic said he is working on  finding a HEPA filter; he asked John Festa about a copy of the revised price on painting the Township Hall. [ The prices are within a few dollars of each other, apparently. ]
The person Vic talked with could not begin until October 1.

Old Business:
The Maynard driveway, which has been John Festa's project and which first came up a year ago..
John Festa:  We are not making any progress.
Jason:  What's the holdup?
JF:  I don't know.  We are running out of time and other things need to be finished up.  I don't know how we are goin to get to the culverts.  Just send people a letter that we will not be able to do it.  I don't know what else we can do.
Jason:  We need to sit down with the road crew and try to prioritize this.  Things always trump work like this.
JF:  What would be our game plan?

Jason:  I talked to Brian Cole and gave him an expectation of October 31.  I told the road crew that.  Brian and they are OK with that.  They need to have deadlines.
JF:  You want them to list these in order?
Jason:  Get as many done as we can.

The only other old business was that John Festa requested a copy of the Land Use Plan.

Public Comment:
Mark Hall:  I am wearing two hats tonight.  As president of The Mantua Restoration Society, we would like to request being recognized under the  Club and Committee section of the agenda.  Our mission is to assist the trustees on the historic buildings and making them part of our civic life.

In carrying out our mission, we have:
Paid $990 for asbestos removal
Offered $800 in repairs on the Township Hall
Acquired 15 gallons of free paint, and 50% off the balance required for the Township Hall
Acquired 5 gallons of primer and sundries for the Center school
Submitted the application for the National Register of Historic Places for the Mantua Center School building, which will open up the possibility for grants.
Nick and Linda Ehlert have offered to paint the outhouse

Can you do that?  [Put MaRSI on the agenda.]

Jason:  I don't have a problem with adding the restoration society to the agenda.  These are usually very brief statements.

John Festa:  Are you a corporation?  Answer:  Yes.  John Festa then asked for a copy of the by-laws.

Mark, continuing:  As a resident, a while back we talked about the PDF file on the cemetery regulations.  Were you able to zero in on our exposure and make sure we don't have that happen again?
Jason:  Back in January John Festa had requested for the cemetery rules and regulations.  To Jim Aldrich: You gave them to John Festa.  John Festa sent them to me in electronic format.
Jason said they were the ones he had.  John Festa had also forwarded me a set of what he had gotten at the OTA conference. [There was a] thought that maybe we could compare the two sets.  What I did at that point was forward the regulation thing to Brent Simon.  I don't know the exact date.

Mark:  It would have been after the 15th because the last date modified was June 15.  Are you going to keep a log of changes in the future, and keep something so that whoever posts it reviews to see if what was posted is what you got?

This is the second time we have had a screwup on this.  The first was with Lynn Harvey's picture [on Zoning.]

Mark to John Festa:  Are you seriously thinking about taking  Township insurance?  Answer:  I could not sleep at night if I did that.

Mark:  Don't forget that you offset the 10% contribution from the road crew with a raise in their wages.
In regard to zoning and abatement--you will have to budget money if you get into liens.

Jason:  When the 10% premium is being forced [?]/phased [?] out of pocked, the employee gains a benefit.
Mark: So that wage increase was a one-shot deal.  You are not going to raises wages every year to compensate for that.

Jason:  We need to look at this and see that they are being compensated . . . .  This will have to be reviewed each year.  [Blogger:  That was a response.  Was it an answer?]

Nick Ehlert:  I spent 31 years with the phone company.  The last system I left was a DI [Blogger:  I do not know what that is; my apologies.]  Did you ask about that?
JF:  That is quite pricey.  I don't see how we could offset the price.

Nick:  (Health Insurance)  With the health care, Obamacare kicks in in January this year, and my friends are concerned that they are being told to pay their own.  That is why your premium is going up.  The companies are raising their prices in anticipation of that.
JF:  Nobody knows what is going on.
NE:  That is all I had.

Jason:  I don't think we are thinking about taking away the insurance.  What we are offering is an extreme strain on the maket.  If we look at what we are offering compared to the public sector, we need to look at that.

Lynn Harvey--no comment.

Sue Skrovan, Wayne Road:  My questions are to Mr. Festa.  I was wondering if you were able to get the answers to my questions from a couple of meetings ago.
1.  The planter at the park.  I had asked what meeting the discussions took place at about installing a bed and  getting the expenditure approved.
2.  I also wanted to know what the total cost of the sign was.

John Festa:  That slipped my mind.  Could you write it down?  [Blogger:  It seems to me that, since the questions were directed to John Festa and it would be up to him to answer them, he, and not Sue, should be the person to write them down.  It is also my understanding that, technically, public records requests do not have to be written down by the requester.]

Sue:  The total cost of the planter and the sign.  You said that the total cost of the sign would not exceed $250.  I would like to know if there was a resolution at a meeting to do that work.

Carole Pollard:  No further comment.  [Blogger:  At least, that's what I think was the case; my remarks were all part of the presentation of the offer from Steve Coon.]

Dave Pollard:  Apparently this question may have been answered.  The morning of August 23 I was going to Garrettsville and met the Township truck coming out of Hiram Village.  Why take a Township truck over to Hiram?  That was one thing.

Jason:  We have logs, so we can find out.

Dave:  It was not at the Township garage.  If you can find out, I would appreciate it.
Thank you for answering the question on the website.

Continuing:  Are you going to be talking to anyone different than you did four years ago--you had people from Regional Planning and Mark Frizone.
 [Blogger:  This is a reference to a special meeting at the Township Hall during the first three or four months of Jason's term.  The topic was what to do about the school building--how to use it and how to get the necessary work done on it.  Mark Frizone, Todd Peetz, Bob Wrentmore, and one or two other people from Ravenna attended.  This may have been the meeting that was also attended by someone from Habitat for Humanity.

The outcome of that was that certain kinds of funding were not available because we are a township; that the red tape for other kinds of activities was so great as to be a cancelling factor; but that everyone from Ravenna agreed that the building is a wonderful facility that they wanted to see us use.

Two other things have stuck in my mind:  One was clarity of the plan--to use the building for township offices, for assembly of all kinds, and for a preschool.  In light of all of the howling about needing a plan that we have heard for the past four years or so, I thought that compliment was interesting.

The second thing that I remember is two comments:  That one of the people there would hate to see the building torn down, and another one said that he would hate to have try to tear it down.  Although the building's local critic has boasted that he has someone who would tear down the school building for $100,000, people who just may know a teensy bit more about these things think that it would be no easy task and would cost far more than $100,000 or even quite possibly more than the original demolition amount in the Ohio School Facilities Commission analysis of the options and costs involved with the building.]

Jason:  I don't think we can predict what the meetings will bring and that is the beauty of the meetings.  I think we will bring out different [portions] of the community.  We don't know what we don't know.  In the reviews that Tood Peetz does,he does not come to our township meetings, so he is a completely unbiased person.  He will compile these focus groups and give a report to the trustees.  It should be an excellent attempt to compile the needs and wants.

Dave:  So we won't know whether we have taken a single step forward in four years.  This is why you met with 8 other people with Regional Planning and Mark Frizone.  There will probably not be a single different idea than you had four years ago.  So with all the talk there has been no movement forward.

Movement forward has come as much as anything from The Mantua Restoration Society in removing asbestos.  I don't see any real movement from the front table.  I see a lot of delay and concerns about what might happen if we do something.  I see no movement despite all the apparent concern.

Dan Cozzens:  A question about the policy.
Jason:  When Brian Savage (our agent) called me he said that Medical Mutual premiums were increasing.  Anthem is out to buy business and so they are underbidding.  Anthem is as good as Medical Mutual.  Even though Anthem came in under MM, it is still an increase of $1,000 per year for 2014 over what we are paying.

Dan:  Regional Planning:  Who was sitting there four years ago?  Answer:  Me and Vic and Mark Hall.

Dan:  I think the zoning ordinance would be a good thing, an advantage for the community.
[Blogger:  This is a reference to a maintenance resolution or ordinance.  Ravenna has had one in place for a year or so.  Basically, it dictates how the outside of a property should be maintained.  It is separate from Zoning, even if it is generally seen as a zoning issue.  It is completely under the authority of the trustees, as I understand it, and deals with things like how often the grass is mowed.  We already have a nuisance ordinance about non functioning vehicles, but that is a zoning issue completely.  This maintenance ordinance is at the discretion of the trustees.  If they decide the grass is too tall, they can hire someone to come in, mow it, and bill the property owner for the work.
John Vechery told me that when Mantua Village instituted such an ordinance, it generated untold problems and increased the general level of ill feeling out of proportion to the good that it did.

Marie:  I went to a meeting at the beginning of the Summer which was generally on health insurance.  The woman is expecting insurance to go to 150% this year.  It seems to be a function of the Obamacare.

Larry Leitzow:  All the insurance--is it 0 deductible?
Jason:  Yes, for employees.
LL:  Isn't that kind of ridiculous?
How long does it take to fix a driveway?  Maynard's has been taking a year.  This is ridiculous.
The next thing is about the school--you guys are getting prices together about what it will cost and what we can do to pay for it.  I think that is moving right along.  More than before.  There is a lot of wasted money in the basement.
[Blogger:  Two things:  To use Jason's favorite response until he came up with "conspiracy theory," that is Larry's opinion.  Second, Larry has conveniently forgotten that for the past four years his people have been the source of the holdup, masked by plausible sounding things like "problem solving workshop" and "focus groups."  This is stagecraft.]