Mantua Township Trustees 7-19-18

[Blogger Foreword:  This will be a short post.  I left at about 8:40, and although I have a recording of the whole meeting, which ended shortly before 10, I am not going to try to recreate the meeting from the recording.]

The meeting began with some discussion about leasing a new copier, since the lease is up on the current one.  Leasing a new one will save over $700 per year, and it sounded to me as if the new one has more functions built in than the current one.  [My notes do not have a record of a motion to do a new lease.]

Committee Reports:  Zoning, Pete Tosi:  There was only one meeting about a property on Center Road.  Jason made some remarks about that, and there was some discussion about fill dirt and the flood plain.  The owner apparently wants to put in a farm pond.

Pete thought that Portage County Soil and Water was the right entity to contact about that.

MSFD, Jason:  Regular calls and runs.  Staff and other things were low key.  There were fire inspections and business as usual.

  Chamber of Commerce, Carole Pollard:     The annual summer luncheon will be at  what Jason helpfully called "Bennerville" in Mantua Village at noon on August 18

Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., Carole Pollard:  The restoration society and the historical society have teamed up to have a joint yard sale [now history] on the green on Saturday, July 21, from 10 to 4 or 10 to 3 if it rained and things got moved inside to the Civic Center.  [The Gold Wings motorcycle club has the Civic Center rented for 4 o'clock or so.]

The  big event coming up for the restoration society is the NOPEC-sponsored summer celebration from noon til 5 p.m. on Saturday, July 28.  The event, which is at the Mantua Center School  building, will begin at noon with Nora and Travis Brant ringing the bell in honor of Cal Brant and all of the work he did not just on that building, but on the others as well.  There will be face painting and balloon animals for the kids, as well as kids' games, and karaoke, swing dancing, and clog dancing in the gym.  Pizza will come from Italian Garden, and there will be cake also.
[At the end of the whole list, John Festa said, "Anything else?" and I asked, "Wasn't that enough?"  That was met with chuckles.]

Amy Janca, about the bull pen and the sign there:  Jim Aldrich [who was not at this meeting, as he has not been at the last couple or more] wants to set the sign temporarily for the approval of the trustees.  Once the decision has been made, it will be permanently installed.

Vic:  I thought we had an agreement it would be within the zoning regulations.  Do you remember that, Pete?

Amy:  Jim Aldrich was not at that meeting, and has made a proposal about where he would like it put.  It does vary a little from the zoning.  [We have seen this movie before, with everything Amy has been involved in:  There are all sorts of promises on the way in, and the final result bears little resemblance to the early hype.]

Vic:  As far as I am concerned, that is what we agreed on.

Frank Horack:  [Frank listed three things that zoning could not regulate, churches among them.]

Vic:  The book has been re-wrote [sic] since you read it.  [As I understand it, Frank had been on the Zoning Commission in the 90's.  At that time the whole commission quit over gravel pit regulations.]

Amy:  I don't know whether we need to get permission from the utility company or what.  The one pole is on the edge of the bull pen.  [I may have dropped out some more commentary about the sign, which promised to be tedious.]

Vic:  It basically will have to be moved also.  It blocks the hill.  I think maybe we should move it out to this pole.  [I think the "it" may mean the electrical service.]  The flag is not a problem, but the basket is.

Jason and John Festa both said they had no problem with the sign.

Pete Tosi:  Do you know where you are going to put it, since you are not going to put it at the 100 foot [distance required by zoning]?  That is what the whole regulation is about.  [There was debate about the location.]

Amy Janca was sure [without measuring, apparently] it will be at about 100 feet.

John Festa:  Let's get something up temporarily.  It is only temporary. [I can tell you that there is a fair amount of skepticism about how temporary it will be.]

Jason:  The signs look very nice.  [Blogger:  My notes contain this remark:  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.]

Amy Janca then said something about the cemetery.

Larry Leitzow:  Why not just have a meeting over there about where the sign is going to be.  The sign won't stand on its own--three guys can haul it.   [Larry's remarks sounded to me as if, following his custom, he had no patience or tolerance for procedure.]

Vic:  We did have a meeting.

Pete Tosi:  Things are getting changed in the middle of it.  [Blogger:  As I said earlier, we've seen this movie before.]

[I think at this point John Festa quelled things by saying that we weren't going to have any raised voices.  Larry had been complaining about wasting time with a bunch of meetings.  I have heard that "song" before, too.]

lLarry left shortly after that exchange.]

Garden Club, Sue Skrovan:  Not much to report since we do not meet in the summer.  But at this time I want to publicly thank the road crew for the gravel and removing the thistle.  I was getting ready to come and cut the tops off because the seed flies all over.

I want to say one thing about the sale this weekend.  Jan Oros has asked to stage everything in the Civic Center, but if it rains it would need to be inside.  It will end at 3 p.m. if it rains.

Amy Janca:  Dottie Summerlin told me I can join in but I haven't heard anything from anyone.

Sue Skrovan:  Get hold of Dottie.

Trustee Reports
John Festa:  Interest on the money we have.  Last year we were paid $710 for the whole year.  Interest now is up to 2.42 percent.  We are now looking at possibly $1,000/month.  [Blogger:  Since I do not have any other information about this (and certainly did not have anything in print in front of me), I can't really comment on that authoritatively.  However, going from $719/yr. to $1,000/month seems very odd.]
JF continuing:  Star is run by the treasurer of the State of Ohio.  The program pays a good rate of interest, keeps everything liquid and is a three-star rating.
John Festa reviewed several other investment tools as well.  CD's were among them; they are short term.
JF:  I don't know if the bank we use now is better.

Jason:  The reason we went with the bank we have is that at the time Marie Stehli said the interest was the best.

JF:  It caught my attention.  I will give you some more as we move along.  One of the requirements for us to do this kind of investment is that we have to come up with an investment policy which would be according to the ORC. If we got $1,000/month, $12,000 per year would certainly help on our equipment payments.

Jason:  Various updates.  We have submitted as we do every year for chip and seal.  The Portage County Engineer puts together a bid book for us as for all the townships and we advertise for this and will run ads for bids to come back by August 9.  Roads:  Skinner, Sheldon (south of 82), Pioneer Trail from 44 to Peck, Frost from Diagonal to Shalersville line and Wayne Road, which is also going to get a leveling course, like what we did at Winchell Road and Townline.

There were two projects that they recommended but moved off for separate bids:  Old Frost and Timberpoint (sp?) Trail.  [Blogger:  I missed the details on those two roads.]  Mill and fill were recommended.  The county estimates cost at $194,677.

With Old Frost it is close to $200,000 +/- 10%.

There will also be center lines and edge lines--do we want to keep them?  They only last for a year or so.

There will be a special meeting on August 9 at 6 p.m.  This will be to open the bids.  The bid books will be at the garage and can be picked up there.

[Blogger:  Three residents from Old Frost were at the meeting.  John Festa asked if they had any questions.  Some of their comments follow, and I will summarize, mostly.  This is an important issue for the residents of Old Frost, which is one mile of unpaved road between S.R. 82 and Pioneer Trail.]

Comments:  They had been told 4 years ago that it would be done.  They have been waiting since they built  their homes in 2005.  The road has to be fixed.  The residents have raised this issue many times with the trustees.  They did acknowledge that the road crew does a good job when the residents call.

Jason:  I can't give you a date and will not give you any excuses.  The year we were talking about it, the county came and looked at it.  We got an estimate in 2014 and the county laughed at us.  The phone line had to be moved, the trees had to be removed, and the cross culverts had to be installed.

[Jason reviewed the demands on the township aside from the road work on Old Frost.]

Continuing:  I am not trying to give you excuses and I completely understand.  Whoever wins this bid for $200,000 this will be our first conversation.

As in the past, the residents recited what it is like driving on and living on the road.  One of them said, "We are beyond pissed."

Vic:  Does it need grading again?

Answer:  Yes.

Vic said he would take care of that.

Jason asked for a contact phone number for the group.  Things wound down on that.

Vic went over the paperwork on the new backhoe.  When all was said and done, with discounts and trade-in, it cost $71,758.  List was $143,835.

Jason commented that the backhoe is the township's most heavily used piece of equipment.

Vic then went over the proposed salt needs.  Last year the cost was $52 something/ton.  This year could go up to $90/ton.

John Festa announced that he was ready to put out bids for the Civic Center painting.

[Blogger:  At that point I left.  I am curious about what got said in Public Comment, given the tone of the discussion about the bull pen, but may  not be curious enough to subject myself to the recording, which  is full of noise and difficult to understand.]
   

A Summer Celebration

If you are a MaRSI member, you already got this notice.

Thanks to the NOPEC community grant program, Mantua Township through the restoration society received a grant to put on some kind of community pride event that is free and open to all.

By now I hope you have seen ads or table tents at various restaurants or flyers posted various places or the very nice article in the Record Courier "LifeTimes" section.

This Saturday, July 28, from noon to five there will be a variety of things going on at the Mantua Center School building, 11741 Mantua Center Road.  The goal was to have activities for a wide range of ages:  balloon animals and face painting for the kids, karaoke by DJ Chuck (Casalicchio), Swing Dancing by Gethepswing from Lakewood, and clog dancing by the Walnut Hill Cloggers from Garrettsville.

The Mantua Shalersville Fire Department will have a truck and the squad there from 1-3, and there will be games for the kids and pizza from Italian Garden.  Popcorn, pop, coffee, tea , and hot dogs will be available as well, plus cake.

The event will open with Nora and Travis Brant ringing the bell in the newly refurbished and gleaming bell tower.  That work was done by to Hummel Construction Company, and it's worth driving by the school just to get a glimpse of it.

The weather is supposed to be perfect, so come out and enjoy the afternoon.

Oh--if anyone would like to contribute to the generally festive atmosphere, cookies are always welcome.  Not required, but nice, if feels inspired to bake up a batch.

We hope to see you there! 

Mantua Township Trustees 7/5/18

Jason Carlton was on vacation.

The first order of business was to set the dates of a budget workshop and a budget hearing.  That was done, and the dates were announced in the blog.  Pending some final modifications, the budget is ready to go to the Portage County Budget Commission.  Your faithful blogger is not going to report further than that.

Then Vic asked if the machinery fund was up to date, because some of that is related to road and bridge.
Vic:  We need about $200,000 for roads, and we are interested in purchasing this backhoe, but that is a 5-year payment.  The down payment is  $15,700 (plus the trade in for the present backhoe) plus the annual payment of $15,700 for 5 years.  We are also paying on the Mack.  It can come out of the road levy or road and bridge, but there should be a line item for machinery.

Vic, continuing:  On the third sheet, wages for the guys, at the top you have 2016.  On the spread sheet you sent us you are showing $60,000 in the school fund.  Where did the money come from?
[Blogger: I could not hear Jodie's answers.]

Vic:  I thought we were down to $3,000 for that fund.

Jodie commented.

Vic:  I thought there was only $2,000-$3,000.  You are going to have to take a look at that again.  On the other report there was only $3300.  Yopu show you are bringing in $110,000 and that is from the state?

Answer:  Yes.

Vic:  It should pass through.  Vic also explained how the bill from Kozma Electric should be paid.

No reports from the zoning inspector or the zoning commission.
Cemetery, total income $3,200.

Vic reported that the shoulder work on Mantua Center Road has been completed, along with some patching.

Sue Lilley, Blackbrook Conservancy, had asked to be put on the agenda.  She had also brought another board member, Doug Hocevar or Kocevar.
[Blogger:  I am not going to try to cover this in the blog.  There was, as usual, a lot of back and forth, and Sue is direct to the border of insult.  From her tone and content of remarks, she seems in my opinion top be hostile in particular to Vic.  There was a piece of information about which she said, very emphatically, "Vic has it."  I learned later that she got it from Vic, which she did not mention.

[Another woman from the Blackbrook Conservancy had come also.  I did not get her name.  She spoke later on.]

There was a lot of back and forth about road width and right of way.  The main debate seems to be over who is responsible for the ditches, and there is also apparently a mismatch between various entities' statements at the county level about who is supposed to do what.

Dave Pollard was recognized to comment:   I think the ditches were put in in the 20's [?].  At that time a property owner could maintain a ditch or even his half of the road right of way and that would be balanced off against his real estate taxes.  It is possible that when that road went through everyone maintained his [own] frontage.  Then once it went into sod farms that is the way it has been.

Vic commented that for him as a trustee to take control of the areas he would have to have something from the county saying that.

There was also some discussion about load limits on that road when the bridge had been repaired or replaced.  Vic thought it would not go higher than 10 tons because it is a chip and seal road.

Trustee Reports, Business

There was a little discussion about Bill Stiner's visit to a previous meeting when he described changing some recycling routes. 
This will apparently be more efficient, because the changed routes will result in picking up 11,000 locations or more in one day.  The rates are going to go up, but the change may help them not go up as much.

There was more about the backhoe which I am not going to report in detail.  There was a little about it at the beginning of the blog/meeting.  The township is first in line, and the next one will be coming in in January.  Vic made a motion about the purchase.  With our trade in, the cost will be $71,758.
Vic also commented that although Jason was not present, he was fully conversant with this purchase and is in favor of it.

Old Business:  John Festa is waiting for input from the historical society about the color to paint the trim and shutters on the Civic Center.

Vic:  We are still working on the fire recall [for the elevator].  They are close.  They have not been working in the attic this week [which was in the mid 90's or better].

Amy Janca:  I was curious--the end of June is past. Did we meet the deadline for the elevator?

Vic:  We can't inspect it until we get the recall.  The elevator guy is out and we have the final inspection on the lobby.  That has been taken care of.  The architect has signed off.  We are OK on the grant, according to Teresa Nielsen.

Frank Horack asked for copies of the fiscal reports to be mailed to him, since he has no computer and his work prevents him from attending every meeting.  He had done this when Marie Stehli was fiscal officer, paying $50.00 to be drawn against for copying and postage.    He thought there should be some record of that and offered to do it again if there was no balance in his favor.
He also asked who decides the weight limit on Mantua Center Road after the bridge has been repaired or replaced.

Vic:  That is the county.  He explained how that works and what several factors feed into that and the speed limits.  In terms of repairs, the township can work within the road right of way but not go onto property.

John Festa:  It is our responsibility to get the water off the road.  The people in the conservancy hve a good point and I think it is just that we find out what is going on.  We are all residents of this township and we don't need hard feelings.

Sue Lilley asked Jodie if she had gotten the old minutes that she had requested that might/should have key information about the matters in question.  That is the book that at present cannot be found.

Vic may have copies of those minutes.

Sue Lilley also commented on the long-term vacancy on the Zoning Commission and the trustees apparently ignoring her expression of interest in being appointed.

Public Comment

Carole Pollard, Allyn Road:  I asked whether the audit is done.  It is not, but the fiscal officer said she had mailed some more things on Tuesday (two days before the meeting).
Pollard:  Shalersville's audit was done in three days.
How many late fees has the township had to pay?

Answer:  I don't know.

Pollard:  You're the fiscal officer and you don't know how many late payments there were? I find that very odd.  I would like to know how many late payments had to be made between January and now.

[Note:  I did that bit of public comment from memory, since it was short and to the point.  I will check subsequently to make sure that nothing substantive was omitted.] 

Dave Pollard, S.R. 82:  This concerns the country and everybody.  Baxter Black [is someone who writes a column in] Farm and Dairy.  I think this is appropriate for some of the things we have been seeing.  We all know that crime and hatred [?] sell newspapers but there is a lot of good that doesn't get recognized.  This is titled "The Flag." [There are preliminary comments by Baxter Black, and then he gives a poem.  Dave read the whole thing, with some difficulty in spots.]

The flag
With your permission, I would like to indulge in a little naked patriotism.  During my lifetime, the United States of America has become a nation like none other on eaeth.  Not because it is the most powerful nation on earth, but because we, more times than I can count, have taken the side of the oppressed with no intention to conquer, rule or pillage.

In the act of offering our assistance, we have sacrificed blood, money and lives.  We have beat ourselves up. We have questioned our motives.  Our leaders have engaged in heated debate about the hows and whys, but we continue to be the single brightest light for the world's mistreated. We will take on the schoolyard bully.

In spite of all our mistakes, missteps, misjudgments and misgivings, the world today would be a completely different place if our country--conservative, liberal, black, white, rich, poor, north, south, Manhattan, New York, or Manhattan, Kansas, Americans all, had turned our back on the injustices and inhumanities that relentlessly stalk the globe.

Supporting the troops and their families on the front lines in the war on terror is not a partisan act.  It is an act of pride, compassion, love, concern, anguish and hope.  They carry our colors into harm's way, and have since 1776.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Flag
That flew over Valley Forge
Was torn in two by the gray and the blue
And bled through two world wars.

I give you the flag that burned in the street
In protest, in anger and shame.
The very same flag that covered the men
Who died defending her name.

We now stand together, Americans all,
Either by choice or by birth
To honor the flag that's flown on the moon
And changed the face of the earth.

History will show this flag stood a friend
To the hungrym the homeless and most
That a mixture of men as comman as clay
Valued one thing beyond cost.

And they've signed it in blood from Bunker Hill
To Saigon, Kuwait, Bosnia
Kabul, Baghdad, Syria and Toko Ri. 
I give you the flag that says to the world
Each man has a right to be free.

Dave continued:  We are still the country that everyone looks to.  We are the ones that help every time.  The middle class in this country gives more than any other class.  I get tired of overpaid spoiled people who will not stand for the Anthem or people who say July 4 doesn't meant anything.
[Dave said more that I could not keep up with, but that is the jist of it.]

John Festa:  Well said.

Next was the woman from Herman Road whose name I did not get.
She asked about the bridge completion and said she keeps getting changing dates about it from the county.  This is a safety issue--when is the bridge getting put in?

John Festa:  You know as much as we do.

Woman:  Who has authority [?] about the bridge.

John Festa:  The county.  When they began on this they said it may be two years.  They tell us the same thing as they told you. 

Woman:  There is a problem with the road because of the trees.  The township boys keep saying they will take care of it.  The trees are still falling down.  Who is going to take down the trees?  First they were backing up the water and now they are dead and falling down.  The property owneer says he wanted it to go back to nature.  The falling trees damaged other property.  The right of way is very narrow there--but the trees are only 5 feet off the road.

Vic:  I will get a surveyor out to see about it. 

Woman:  The ditches are not even ditches any more--they have been filled up.

Public comment ended at 8:45.

Budget Workshop and Hearing

At this time of year it is customary to go through the budget and allocate funds, if I remember correctly.  This process involves two meetings:  a workshop to develop the details, and a hearing before filing everything with the County.

Both are open to the public and must be advertised, since all three trustees will be in attendance.

The budget workshop is scheduled for Tuesday July 10 at 7p.m. in the township hall, I believe.  Generally, although it is of course open to the public, it is not open to public comment.

The budget hearing is scheduled for Thursday July 12 at 5:30 p.m. in the township hall.

That is all for this post.  Posts for the trustees meeting on 7/5 will begin soon, but they will be as brief as possible while still being informative.  There is a lot on your faithful blogger's plate right now, and it is always possible (gasp!) to attend a meeting to be informed first hand.