Sue Skrovan had two questions before the comments that have been set down in detail in a previous post.
They follow.
Sue: A couple of quick questions: When is Trick or Treat--has any decision been made about that?
[There was discussion, briefly. Decision: Thursday, October 31, 5-7p.m., is trick or treat time in Mantua Township. This coincides with the Village. A motion was made, seconded, and approved unanimously.
Second, a question to Marie: Do you know how many requests you have received for copies of the bills for the school?
Marie did not, offhand.
Sue--I would like to know how many people made requests.
Marie: Three. Sue: Three different people. Answer: Yes.
Mark Hall, Loris Avenue: A question on the mini excavator: Does that include a lease purchase on the trailer?
Jason: No; the trailer would be a separate purchase. It is about $4,000.
Mark: Zoning records that need to be redacted: You can not pre-redact anything because the original can not be disturbed. Before anything goes out, it needs to be reviewed to see that the right redacting is done.
Jason: We just more or less need to know what is there. [Jason talked a little about John Dickey not yet knowing actually what can be done or requested 10 years after , for example.] He is hesitant to give things out.
Mark: Now would not be a time to mess with redaction. It might be appropriate for John Dickey to get himself to a public records training class.
Vic: There is one on line, one hour for only $20.00.
Jason asked if that one was specifically for zoning.
Vic: It is through the Ohio Historical Society.
Jason: There is also one at Maplewood.
Vic thought the on-line class was a kind of jump start to records.
Barb Herbold:In regard to the LCA: our officers are Terri Resh, President; Sue Skrovan, Secretary; and Barb Herbold, Secretary. We call Sue Skrovan first when we want to have a meeting because she is so busy.
Amy Janca: I would like to thank Mr. Festa for getting us a trimmer so we could edge the bed.
Terry Nielsen: With regard to the health insurance, is there any way you could buy it through a group so you are not looking at such a small number [of people on the Township's bill]?
Vic: The group we are in now is a consortium. That is why we are with the company we are with now.
Terry: With regard to the records, they need to be electronically collated so that if you have someone who is new to the job, they can pull up the record by any key [word]. I would be happy to help set up a data base. I also want to know whether the trustees have a policy relating to records as to how long they are kept or destroyed.
[Terri went into more detail about how a cross referencing system would make things easier for anyone working with zoning records. Vic described how the difficulty at present with the records is partly because of moving 30 years' worth into a new location, trying to keep the boxes more or less straight. That last sentence is mine, mostly, not Vic's exact words, but I believe it describes the situation.]
Terri reiterated that she would be happy to offer her services.
Matt Parsons: No comment.
Dawn Pechman: I have a number of things I want to address. I want to start with Terri's offer of help--I think that is wonderful. I have offered to help to, but it has never come up [been accepted]. I know a whole lot about public records and meetings. Vic, you are wrong about having to pay for a records meeting; it is free, and I am glad that Mark Hall knows a whole lot about public records.
Vic: Dawn, I was just reading what's on the e-mail. It says $20.
Dawn: It is through the Attorney General and you don't have to pay for it.
Vic: This is what it says on the e-mail.
Dawn: Well, that's wrong too. It is the Ohio Historical Association.
[Blogger: To the best of my knowledge, there is no such entity. The Ohio Historical Society keeps an archive of public records, I believe].
And club and committee reports are running rampant--I think it seems as if the club and committee reports have been taking up more time than the trustees' business. [Blogger: I have absolutely no idea where Dawn got this idea, because it is a complete exaggeration. Complete.]
Dawn, continuing: I am glad you are working on getting that straightened out. Clubs need to do what they say. [Blogger: Here Dawn said that is something else that she does well. I am not going back to the recording to try to get that.]
It is nice that Sue mentioned [how she has been treated.] It is hard when people are nasty and rude to each other and I will go back 8 years again at a garden club meeting when I had two letters read to me. We can be a community and it begins right here at this table [the trustees' table]. If someone is out of order, tell them politely to shut up [how do you say "shut up" politely?] and it is important for this zoning stuff to be straightened out. I have offered to help but have not been able to and it is unfortunate.
Mantua Township is the worst of all the townships I have had to deal with. Communication goes both ways. Policies and procedures are important also.
[Blogger: OK, for the record: The letters Dawn refers to at a Garden Club meeting came after a long time of tolerating her behavior, and the authors of the letters stood up and read them at the meeting. They were not anonymous, they were not hate letters, and they had been a long time coming. And, if you read the post with Sue's public comments, you will remember that I mentioned something about Dawn's repaying Sue's kindness in complimenting her for helping. This is how she did it.
As for Mantua Township being the worst, you should be reminded that Dawn has gotten every request that she has paid for--to the tune of something like 8,000 to 10,000 pages.
Early in doing the blog, I did a post on public records called "Let the Sun Shine In." You might want to pull it up out of the blog archives, because it is the topic of some of the remarks in this post, and is relevant--very relevant--to some of what was said in this meeting. .
Dawn is one of the candidates for trustee in this election, by the way. Her resume is on file in the Portage County Court Records. You should check it out.]
Ellie Monroe: No comment.
[Blogger: Well, this is another time when I have enjoyed as much of this as I can stand. Carole Pollard, Dave Pollard, Betsy Wolfe, and Dan Cozzens also commented. Their remarks will be in a separate post, and then I will fill in the things from the meeting that are significant or that prompted items during public comment.]
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.
