Trustees 12-15-16, Mostly Public Comment re School

Shalersville, Mantua Village, and Mantua Township, plus a few other entities, are going to share the cost if something goes wrong with the fire alarm monitor.

Vic suggested setting up a budget line item of $1,000 for that, and Jason suggested $500.  That was the amount set, I believe.

Vic:  I am still fighting with the heat in the old part [of the school].  I called Shalersville and they referred me to someone who actually lives in the township.  He was there from 11-4 and came back at 7 today.  He was having as much trouble as I was.  I put some parts in last Friday, and it worked for a while, but it's back to not working.   He [the service man] said twice he had it done and had to work on it some more.

No more new business.

The speed limit on Wayne Road:  The speed limit could have been raised after it was paved.

The Elevator:  Vic gave Jason a copy of the permit to begin the demolition on the school for the elevator.  The contract has been signed, and we will get a set of prints.
  [Blogger's emphasis.]

There was some discussion about the sewer tie-in project on Pioneer Trail.

Public Comment began at 8:40.
Mark Hall, Brian Summerlin, and Marie Stehli had no remarks.

Carole Pollard, Allyn Road:  I returned to a comment made at Governor Voinivich's memorial services:  Not everyone can be great, but everyone can be good, and being good trumps being great.
[I am summarizing my remarks here.]  I observed that in this season, and with a new year beginning, that idea was a good one to take to heart and act upon.
[See what you make of what followed, dear reader.]

Steve Zielinski, S.R. 82:  About the walk-through [with the trustees and Mark Frisone].

[Blogger:  The people on the walk-through included three members of the Community Center Task Force in addition to Mark Frisone and the trustees.] 

Jason:  This was an information gathering session.  No decisions were [or could be made].  Mark Frisone is the head of Family and Children's Services and in this walk-through we went through the building and there were no "Aha!" moments.  He shared some ideas about senior housing and a shared building that he thought would be successful.  We discussed a variety of things.  He had made mention that he has seen shared services work together that he never thought would work together.  He was going to do some checking about what he thought could be next steps.

There was also some discussion among the folks there about what does it matter who owns the building.

Family and Children's Services owns their own building.  If the community says it wants a community center, do the trustees need to own the building?  The trustees are not in the business of scheduling or working out what groups would be in there.  We [the trustees] have other things to work on--roads and ditches.  If that is what the community wants, does it matter to you who owns the building?  You are going there for a service.  That is the thing that was tossed around a little bit.  I don't think the trustees have discussed that.  Everybody had a chance to ask Mark Frisone questions and he was a spout of information.

John Festa confirmed what Jason had said:  Mark Frisone has been in this for a long time and it is good to pair up with public and private entities.  The idea of apartments would cost a lot of money to do.  But as far as the community, it doesn't matter who owns the building; if one of the community groups wants to lease the building, we would be happy [to consider that] and maybe even rent from them.  It may or may not work.  [If someone wanted to take the reins, we may consider it.]  [Blogger: The brackets around that sentence are in my notes.  Today, almost two weeks later, I am not sure why they are there unless I summarized John Festa's words, keeping to the intent but not noting them verbatim.]

Jason:  I think everything is on the table.  Mark Frisone can not get grants or funds unless the entity requesting owns or has full control of the building.

 [Blogger:  Between the Grants and Funding Committee and The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., close to $300,000 in funding has been brought in for the school building.  The trustees have contributed $10,000 towards the elevator project and have signed the necessary papers.  The Grants and Funding Committee has applied for further grants as well.  That process is like a river:  it just keeps rolling along.]

Jason, continuing:  I don't think it's out of the question that he may be interested in something like that, but he does have that power--to get hundreds and thousands of dollars. He has a full time grant writer on his staff.  He has statistics and data on what different groups from this area utilize as services in Ravenna.  Maybe it would make more sense for them to get those services here.

It is loud and clear the township wants a community center.  It is a matter of who is going to run and fund it.

Steve:  The last thing:  Merry Christmas to all.

[Blogger:  Roger Hurd spoke next.  His remarks are a major part of the first post for this meeting.]

Dave Pollard, S.R. 82:  When you have that kind of cooperation  [that Roger described] for that long, it is something to be really valued.  You don't find that lasting that length of time in many communities.  It is something that should be treasured by the community, and I hope it keeps going like that for another 150-200 years.  It is unusual in a good way.  Have a merry Christmas and spend time with your families.

Roger asked for a chance to speak again, and Jason recognized him:  My wife and I clean the church, and we take one bag out twice a week and then two bags once or twice a month.  On twelve-eighteen weeks a year, it [the shared dumpster] is full to overflowing, and we have to wait until it is emptied.  [It is a three-yard dumpster.]  [Blogger:  In my opinion, this is a quantifiable way of defining fair use of the dumpster.]

Larry Leitzow, S.R. 82:  I had a call from Jim Aldrich (sexton) this morning [Thursday].  He said the furnace is not working in the school.

Vic:  Someone was there working on it at 7 in the morning.

Larry:  Maybe it's time for a new one.
What about the sewer lines being capped off?
[Blogger:  This picks up the thread that was started in the October meeting at the Civic Center facilitated by Todd Peetz.  My intention is to go back, pick that up, research it on site as well as in the updated plans, and report facts.]

Vic:  I don't know, Larry.

LL:  Maybe you should have come out here and hooked into the main line.

Vic:  That would have cost a lot of money.

Vic:  This [the elevator project]  is the commissioners' job.  [Blogger's boldface.]

Dan Cozzens, Winchell Road:  There are rumors about the sewer and the heat.  Has anyone come up in the last year with a plan about what you are planning to do?  It seems ridiculous to put an elevator in if you aren't doing anything with the building.  You have been talking for years about getting a plan together.
[Blogger:  Correction:  For a good long time, two of the trustees iterated and reiterated that we need a plan.  No action followed the comments.  There was no talk that would lead to actually developing a plan, no authorization of anyone with the requisite expertise to develop a plan. Just "We need a plan."]

Jason:  Putting in the elevator into a building not being used:  one of the concerns was that we wanted to be sure the building was totally accessible.  Then the funding committee went out and got funds for the CDBG from the commissioners.  We had to discuss doing it.  Where would the rest of the money come from?

The same group was able to get money from Senator Eklund's office:  $140,000.  That money plus the CDBG is going to be used for the elevator.  The township is going to put in $10,000.  The other money is being given to us.  We are very lucky.


The Utilization Committee has come to the trustees a couple of times.  Coming to now, we have a couple of church organizations trying to spearhead this and have some committees they are bringing together to see how to make it a community center.

Work needs to be done about room renovation.  Maybe the tenants can do some of that.

The elevator project has been going on for over a year.  It takes time to get the money together.  I think we are starting to move forward on this.  If a community center is what the community wants, we haven't heard otherwise.


DC:  What will it take to do it correctly and not part way?  Heat and AC?  You need to know the total cost--has anything been figured up yet?

Jason:  Before the elevator project one was the Assessment Committee.  They came to us just before the elevator hitting, and said, "How can we give you a cost if you don't know what it is going to be used for?  That is when the elevator went in [as part of the considerations, blogger's interpolation] and the Building Assessment Committee worked on that.

DC:  As a building owner, wouldn't the owner be responsible for heating, windows, roof, etc.?

Jason: I don't think it would be fair to go back to them after all they have done.

Vic:  The items you are talking about, my conversation with Mark Frisone is that we should watch for grants for a roof, and our grants committee has been very fortunate in getting the grants.

DC:  Grants are great, but it has to be in a timely manner.  [He then gave examples of possible problems.]

[Blogger:  For a long time, the argument was that the trustees didn't want to "piecemeal" the project of the school building.  But I have seen project descriptions for buildings totaling millions of dollars, and guess what?  They go in stages.  Is there a difference between that and "piecemeal"?  Well, sort of, I guess:  stages must go in logical order.  But the project still doesn't get done all at once.]

Jason:  No township in Portage County has the money to do this.  He mentioned a levy.

DC:  Chances would be slim and none.

Jason:  I am hoping Mark Frisone could be our savior in this with some agreed-upon contexts and we would be a tenant.  A lot of those conversations are up in the air.

[Blogger:  One more note:  I believe there is a prohibition about putting a levy onto the ballot for only one building.  The township owns five:  the township hall, the civic center, the township garage, the salt shed, and the school.  As I understand it, the levy would have to be for use on all five.]


Dave Pollard:  [To my surprise, Jason recognized Dave.]  The Grants and Funding Committee has been looking at the whole thing and it has been a serendipitous process for all of the committees--they keep finding the right people.  The township has put in $10,000 and the restoration society has put in more than double that.  The Grants and Funding Committee is being careful to keep the costs to the township minimal.

The community also said they want the township to retain ownership of the building.  I will tell you flat out I don't care much for Mark Frisone.  That is first impression.  He is not the kind of person I would want to be friends with.  That may not have anything to do with how he does business.

I do not want to see the people who want to keep the building as part of the township see it taken out from under them.

Jason:  I disagree with that.  I am all about what the community wants.  I don't want to __?__ characters.  You are the first person who has said anything about Mark Frisone.

They were almost done, and then Jason recognized Jan Oros.

Jan:  I can see how well this topic was orchestrated.

You would actually sell the building to Mark Frisone?  Because when we talked about the land across the bullpen, you said you couldn't sell it.   [It would have to go up for auction.]  Would it be different for Mark Frisone?

Would you be opposed to leasing it to Mark Frisone?

John Festa:  We can lease the building and then rent rooms in it.   I would entertain a lease--that would be a win-win.

Jason:  To me it [ownership] is not off the table.

[Blogger:  Essentially, that was the end of the meeting.  The trustees recessed to pay the bills, and I left.]

Trustees 12-15-16

Present:  Larry Leitzow, Steve Zielinski (sp?), Dan Cozzens, Jan Oros, Marie Stehli, Brian Summerlin, Mark Hall, Todd Peetz, Benton Stull, Roger Hurd, Dave Pollard, Carole Pollard

Todd Peetz was attending in order to present information about fair housing laws, which all CDBG recipients must receive.  People cannot be denied housing based on race, gender, having children, handicaps, or military status, among others.

Todd also announced that Regional Planning now had a grant writer, and that the commissioners had hired a planner.  The intention is for everyone to have an equal chance to receive grants.  The first grant is a service of regional planning.  If a township or other government entity gets one grant, writing the next one is funded through technical assistance hours, available to all eligible county entities.

Todd also asked about a meeting date in January regarding the school.

Jason had not thought about it.

Club and Committee reports were next.

 The only reports were from The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., and the fire board.  The restoration society is planning an arts event.  It will be an Artist's Overstock auction, a Mini Art Quilt Auction, and a cookie walk.  The restoration society and the task force to develop a community center in the school are collaborating on this.  It will be a fund raiser and also a way of leading people through the school, since the plan is to have cookies and the mini quilts in the available rooms, with the little quilts as silent auction items.  The art items will be sold by live auction in the annex, with Rick Painley as the auctioneer.  The date is February 11, to give cookie buyers a chance to get sweets for Valentine's day.

The fire board report from John Festa was that a contract has been approved with the fire fighters for one year.

There was some routine business about plowing snow at LaDue Reserve.

Then there was discussion about correspondence from the president of the Gold Wings motorcycle club, which meets in the Civic Center.  They were concerned about the cost of the rent.  However, they store their things in the building at no additional cost.  The feeling was that there have been very few increases, and we need to come up to some kind of par with the market.  The rent has been $50/day and is due to go up to $65 at the beginning of the year.

What followed was a leisurely discussion about the services shared by the township and the Mantua Center Christian Church:  the well (which requires water softener), the dumpster and trash pickup, and the parking lot(s).  The issue about the parking lots is that the road crew could possibly be pulled off plowing the roads to clear the parking lot.   The church pays part of those fees, and it has been a handshake  agreement for some time. The septic system is also shared, with the distribution field all on church property and two tanks, one on church property and the other on the township's.  Recent work on the septic system came to $1672.50.  Roger Hurd stated that the church paid $270 for one of the expenses involved.  The church pays for the dumpster and is then reimbursed for 2/3 of that by the township.

Jason  thought that perhaps the township was paying somewhat more than its fair share, and Brian Summerlin thought the church could pay for some of the water softener.  Vic thought it would be impossible to sort out the costs.

It was a neighborly, unhurried discussion, but there were impatient mutterings from the back of the room.  [We had been spared those since about August, but now they had returned.]

There was discussion about the Chagrin River Watershed Partnership, which has dues of about $1300.  The discussion comes up every year about whether to continue it, but the group is a good source of information.

[Blogger:  I am going to pull in comments from later in the meeting because they are so relevant to the discussion about the services shared by the township and the church.]

Roger Hurd, Mantua Center Road:  A comment on the cooperation between the church and township:  that goes back 170 years.  I wasn't here the whole time, but part of it.  In the 1840's after the church was build, the church built two horse barns and hitching rails on township property.  The barns were on church property.  In the 50's the parking lot on the south side was a field.  Durfee Aldrich dug it out, and various businesses--Brugmann's, for example--brought in the grave.  The idea was to have a community parking lot.  In the 1970's the church undertook to redo the Civic Center and wrote one check for $7300 for material.  Vic Magyarics and some others put in hundreds of hours and hauled a lot of loads of dirt out.  At the time it was agreed that we [the church] did not have to pay rent if we wanted to use it.  In the 40's and 50's when the township had one truck and two guys, the church plowed everything.  That is the kind of cooperation we had.  When the lift station went in, we tapped into that.  It was my understanding that we paid for part of the lift station or did the township pay for the whole thing?

Vic:  I don't know, Roger.  I am sure we shared the expenses.

Roger:  The lot line is at the door of the church.  The steps belong to the township.  We would not do anything to jeopardize that.  It has been a long, long time of mutual backscratching--176 years.  That is what I wanted to bring up--history and the background of cooperation.  We are landlocked by public land and understand our position there.

Jason:  Thanks, Roger.  I didn't know that history.  I hope we can make things fair and keep working on it. 
 

Public Comment, Trustees

Blogger Foreword:  Well, several days of major computer problems plus the onset of the holidays (not to mention the SS/DD quality of "government" in the township) have conspired to delay posting public comment from the last meeting.

Amazingly, it was over by 8:10p.m.  There was a rather curious transaction about the minutes, but I need to check something about that.  My intention is to check for accuracy and then give the whole string, which had its beginning clear back in October.  [The time is from memory; it was a while ago.]

Public Comment began at 8:00 p.m. 

Amy Janca, Barbara Herbold, and Carole Pollard had no comment.  Apparently my saying nothing was of some unkind interest to someone sitting in the vicinity of Barb and Amy, because there was a derogatory sounding grunt from that area.  Apparently with the Harrasser-in-Chief no longer attending meetings, someone else has moved to fill in that niche.  Whoopee.

Mary Ann Weber,  re bullpen:  [This was about the licensing agreement that John Festa has been pushing.] 
Not really [anything] other than that my attorney thought a couple of changes were a little strange.  And what is the point of signing an agreement if the township can revoke it at any time?  

It upsets me every time I have to come to a meeting.  I am about ready to throw up right now and I have anxiety attacks a couple of times a week.

[Blogger:  If Mrs. Weber had hoped that somehow this would prompt some compassion, she was absolutely wrong.  My own view is that her remarks, as anguished as they were, would be seen as a sign that they had her on the run and only needed to close in--about like wolves going after a weak animal in the herd.  And none of my comments here should be read as critical of her.  I think plenty of criticism is justified, but not of her.]

Jason:  This is exactly the way it should be and the township has not used the barn at all.

[Mrs. Weber actually said more than I noted, and much of it was about the property line in relation to the barn on the property.  The whole thing is more of a tangle than it appears in this post, including a good deal of irritation on the part of the property owner, who is upset by the situation also.  The Webers are renting.]

Dave Pollard, S.R. 82:  What if anything has been done about the issue Bill Kelley brought up?
[This is about the encroachment on both the east and west sides of School Lane, which Bill came to three meetings to seek action or at least a reasonable response.]

Jason:  We haven't discussed anything about it.  The guys are going to do some chipping about overhead brush.

Dave:  There is a lot more to that than there is with Mrs. Weber's situation.

Jason:  We haven't really talked about it.

Jan Oros, Wayne Road:  Jan asked about seeing her name in the minutes regarding speed limits.

Jason explained the process of a speed study.  This had to do with Skinner and Sheldon roads, both of which are posted at 40mph.

Jan:  I believe the speed limit on Wayne Road should be dropped for the same issues--sight line and it has become a cutoff road between 44 and 82.  With a driveway and the speed that people are traveling, that is an issue.  [Visibility out of Jan's drive can be a problem, in light of the speed at which people travel.]

Jason then talked about speed studies.

Jan:  The speed limit is 45mph, and I think that is too fast.

Jason:  It  is not a fast process.

Vic:  A lot of that depends on the surface of the road.  When it was paved, it may have been 45mph, but the condition may have changed.
The township trustees are only allowed to set speed limits on gravel roads and subdivisions:  25-35mph in both.  [Traffic count and line of sight are among the relevant conditions, and there is only one gravel road in the township.]

Jan:  We have had cars up in our front yard and [one] off the road across the street.

Public Comment ended at that point:  8:10p.m.

[Some of the details, which are clearer in the moment, have been left out of this post.  It is hard to visualize property lines which are only being discussed, not examined or demonstrated on a map.  The same is true of the right of way issue that Bill Kelley brought up.  That is an interesting issue that seems to me of much more real importance than the one for which John Festa is pushing a licensing agreement that is essentially meaningless.
[School Lane is used on Election Day; for the trustees--Jason and John Festa--to ignore that is serious business.  Could it affect whether the school is used for voting?  My opinion is that ignoring it should affect the status of the two trustees who are avoiding the issue.  That one deals with voting rights and the responsibility of elected officials to protect those rights.  
[The bull pen property line issue has a lot more to do with the good old boy conduct that has been foisted onto the township since 2009.  Someone with power or influence over a trustee or trustees wants it.  Never mind about long-established custom and neighborliness, and even less about justice being tempered with mercy.
[The next trustees meeting is day after tomorrow, as I keyboard this.  I can hardly wait.  Can you spell "sarcasm," boys and girls?]

Trustees 12-1-16: Elevator Notice to Proceed

Blogger:  This post is only going to be one brief entry, which I consider significant enough to deserve solo status.

Vic:  I got an e-mail from Lisa Reeves.  She has sent the paperwork to proceed to the contractor on the elevator.

Apparently all the contracts have been signed.  We don't know how much will be extra through the grants because it has taken so long to get things signed.  Lisa is worried about change orders.  Most of the grant is probably used up.

John Festa:  Do you know if the final plans were submitted?

Vic:  I will know tomorrow.

Jason:  Do we need to talk about the elevator?  [Blogger:  Just from these words, a number of interpretations are possible.  As I heard it, the question was about whether further discussion needed to be carried out at the moment.]

Vic:  It is moving forward.  Continue to go after other grants.

Jason:  The $140,000 . . . .

Vic:  She thinks it has been used up also.

[Blogger: Lisa copied me on that e-mail.  In it, she specified a completion date of June 30, 2017.  Vic mentioned that, I believe, but since I already knew it and also knew pretty much what this post would be, I did not record that part of his remarks.]