Carole Pollard, Allyn Road: There has been a lot of discussion about what the community wants and how things change. In 2010 we had an open house and had a comment box. I am not going to read them all, but there were quite a few about a senior center. We don'[t have any place to hang out, Jason.
Comments: Beautiful building
Thank you for saving this building.
Wonderful start on renovations.
My family and I have been riding our bikes past here for years.
We live in another township but if we can help, give uis a call.
CP, resuming: There is a lot of nostalgia in this. People have roots here. The first thing an invading army does is tear down the sacred buildings. This is as close to a sacred building as we have. [Blogger: I know that churches are automatically sacred. The school has acquired that status by its connection to the whole township, unlike churches, which are connected to portions of a community rather than the whole.]
One of the things that was said was that the blackboards should be kept. This is only three years old. I will give these to all of you. You are reinventing the wheel.
Jason: How many people attended? Answer: About 300.
Jason: How many comments? Answer: About 30.
Jason: How many residents?
CP: Are you trying to chip away at this. It sounds like it.
[Blogger: At this point Jason actually was writing down figures, working out percentages, and reducing the comments to something inconsequential. Early in his term he said he lived by facts. This is absolutely the first time I have seen him do anything like establishing facts--and instead of using them to work for something, he used them as a weapon. This is, of course, my opinion. I stand by my comment that they--John Festa and Jason Carlton--are reinventing the wheel.]
Jason: We need to give this to an official organization. [It took four years to decide this?] I think some of those comments are good. I don't want to make it sound as if we are discounting them, but we have approved this.
CP: The other thing that I wanted to say--I will give you this at the end of the meeting--is that all of the studies done so far are now out of date. The 2002 analysis was to bring the building up to current standards for a school. It would have cost close to $2.6 million, so the school was discarded. The Dave Sommers study was done in 2004 before the building was on the National Register.
Any studies that are done now should take that into account.
Jason: How I can imagine this whole process going is that once we have determined what the public needs and wants are, then we can focus on the specifics. Before any work can be done, we [I?] would have to put those plans before the building department. You mentioned a sprinkler system. The building department would determine that.
[Blogger: One of the things John Festa mentioned is a sprinkler system. That requires either a water tower or city water. The first looks as if it would be exorbitantly costly. The second does not exist in the township. So. Having watched John Festa for two years about the school, I do not think it is too far fetched to believe that he is looking for anything that will "prove" that the school is impossible. And I have to say that Jason is mounting considerably less than a robust defense of the building. Actually, nearly non-existent, despite the fine verbiage and buzz words.]
CP [trying to make a little lemonade out of this]: Up until now a lot of these requirements have sounded like someone's opinion and not those of someone with the right credentials. Something that has not been mentioned is what has been done on the school and I have given it to you about three times. That needs to be taken into account because if it is not, the requests for bonds will be inaccurate.
A lot of this is whistling in the wind. It does not sound to me as if any of this has been heard.
[Blogger: If someone confrontive, like Dave or me, says it, the response is dismissive, possibly accompanied by scowls from one trustee and sneers from the observers along the wall. If someone diplomatic says it, the response is dismissive, accompanied with a smile that I have trouble accepting as genuine.]
Dave Pollard, S.R. 82: The point constantly missed about the comments is that 1.4% were negative. Watch the national elections. With 20-30% of the vote going one way, the election is foretold. The people on record as opposing the building could not have been bothered to put their comments down.
On a separate note, a few years ago in discussions held in this building there is apparently a discrepancy in how the road crew's work is considered as a cost. Any time the road crew worked at the center school building, there was a hue and cry that it had to be be charged against the building. Now it is a service to the community. There was a call for job sheets so that their work could be related to the projects. That was the way business does it was the claim. Now that has been cast aside. You have a two-faced policy that should be corrected. If they are going to plow snow at the Center school, it should be a service or it should be charged.
I did get my answer about why the truck was in Hiram. The three of them lugged the two pages to Vic's shop from the garage [and gave it to me].
Steve Zelinski and Mr. Zullo had no comment.
Betsy Wolfe, S.R. 44: I want to tell Mark Hall that I saw the coverlet. It is beautiful. [Mark had announced during Club and Committee Reports that The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., has a coverlet for sale by pre-order and payment showing historic buildings in Mantua Village, Mantua Township, and (I believe) Shalersville, with the Mantua Center School building in the center of it.]
I did records for the township and I always made a copy of the original and redacted key information [on the copy]. I know how to handle records and have been to the workshop. I med John Dickey and he explained what he wants to do. I am already here and would be willing tohelp. Right now, I am looking for two files/records for him.
The room where he needs the lock is the big room.
Vic: I have a lock for that and it is being changed.
Betsy: The room the cabinets are in, you cannot stand in and pull the drawers out.
Jason: Which room?
Betsy described the room, which is the east classroom. She said, I am picking up the rest of the files from Robin on Sunday [those are BZA files] and will be bringing them. We need the room.
Vic:We needed a place where we can lock it all up and that is why it all went in there [the narrow little room that had, years ago, been a kind of supply store where we could buy pencils and paper.]
Betsy: The big room just needs to have a lock on it.
Vic: I have a lock and need to have a key [made].
Dan Cozzens, Winchell Road: What is the explanation about the trip report?
Jason: Basically, Dave Pollard asked why the truck was in Hiram. It was when Brian Tayerle was coming back from getting a quote from Panny's.
DC: I knew there had to be a logical explanation.
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.
