Foreword: The trustees' decision following the March 20, 2014 executive session is well known now. This post is as close as I could get to a real transcript. (It takes very little foot-shuffling and throat-clearing to muffle a word or phrase, and no one was shouting from the rooftops in this session.)
This post also contains observations. In the past I have gone home and simply gotten the word from the hardy souls who stayed.
First, the regular meeting on March 20 ran to almost 3-1/4 hours. The executive session lasted somewhere between 40 and 45 minutes.
Jason opened the door to the Township Hall to let us back in. He looked very sober.
When everyone was reseated, Vic made the motion to reconvene the meeting. He looked the way he always does--not stone-faced, but calm and fairly unreadable.
For the two years he has been in office, John Festa, as I remember him, has always sat quite straight--not stiff and ramrod straight, but with his back straight and his shoulders square. This time, he was slumped over his solar plexus, like an inflatable doll that had lost about half of its air. To me, it was a noticeable contrast to his usual posture.
Everyone sounded hushed and solemn.
I believe that Jason asked Vic if he would present the motion. Vic agreed to do that and asked Marie to read it.
[Motion to terminate] Mike Richards' employment as a Mantua Township employee for violation of the employee policy manual Section 5.1, # 3, insubordination, and Section 5.2, #5, direct insubordination. Furthermore, all township property, keys, and any other equipment be returned in good condition by March 26, 2014, by mail to 3818 Winchell Road, Mantua, Ohio. Also, that any unauthorized entry into Mantua Township buildings will be deemed as trespassing.
Jason asked if there were any additions or corrections.
Marie took a roll call vote.
John Festa paused and voted yes.
Jason, no pause, yes.
Vic, no pause, yes.
Jason asked if there was any other business this evening.
Vic made the motion to adjourn; Jason seconded. All voted yes.
The reconvened meeting to make, read, and pass the motion lasted just under 3 minutes.
We walked out of the Township Hall at around 11:35 p.m.
Monday, March 31, 2014
3-20-14: Public Comment, Pt. 2: Illogic and Mere Assertions
Blogger foreword: Dawn's remarks are condensed. I have listened to them on my recording and believe that the shortening did not distort the content of her remarks.
This post has not been exhaustively proofread for typographical errors. I have checked the match between the post and the comments as uttered.
Dawn Pechman, [Robin Park]: It is National Sunshine Week. I have noticed government entities that have their records in order run better. Mantua Township still does not have a good handle on its records.
[Blogger: This is Dawn's opinion, which she has been stating since I first saw her in a meeting in 2005 or earlier. If she were correct in her assertions, she could take the township to court; there are hefty fines for not complying with open records law.]
[ I understand that she also has her own standards of evaluation for such things, which apparently to her trump any others, going by her ongoing complaints.]
Dawn, continuing: The township website does not have correct dates of meetings on the website. The website needs to be expanded and I would be happy to give my ideas about it.
Then she referred to the blog by my name and the blog title as stating that there had been a six-minute executive session. She misread the statement in the blog. Jason told her not to use names.
Next Dawn asked about administrative leave: It requires a doctor's slip to come back?
Jason: It sure does. Jason also stated that, in addition, the trustees would have to approve the return to work.
Dawn: The survey was not worth the time and a lot of time has been spent about 15 responses.
[This is pure Dawn: choose a small segment of an issue to deflect attention from the bigger picture or to reinterpret it to suit her. I saw her try it in court once, and watching the judge and the lawyer stop that cold was very satisfying. Where is the deflection in the above remark of hers? In the e-mail trail connected with the whole thing.]
Larry Leitzow, S.R. 82: I haven't said much in 9 months because everything I say gets turned around and put on certain blogs.
Tonight you have argued for nearly 3 hours [about the newsletter and website.] I don't have a computer and don't want one. I pick up a paper. [Hmm. But he referred to the blog.]
What difference does it make if there is advertising? People in Barky's pick up the Record Courier and "Mantua Matters." I don't know if "Mantua Matters" has advertising. Everybody does not have a computer and I don't have one and don't need one. A lot of people don't even get their papers delivered. If someone is paying for it it is not coming out of the township.
Everything costs something. The free paint job on this building is going to be $12,000 to $20,000 for free painting on this building.
[Somewhere in here, Vic and Larry tried to talk over each other and Larry stopped Vic by demanding some respect. I am biting my tongue right now.]
Vic: So I can respond [now]. I don't want to disrespect you. My biggest concern is waste of money and we have to stay within the boundaries of the Ohio Revised Code (ORC). Look at this opinion from the Ohio Attorney General. There is a concern about advertising.
Larry: If other townships are doing it, it must be OK.
Vic: It depends on the prosecutor in other counties. I am asking John Festa to contact Chris Meduri. He can consult him [but] he doesn't see any reason to do it.
The paint is [already] purchased. The $15,000 to $20,000 is not for paint.
[Blogger: The estimates are for $11, 580 and $15,300. I asked for both and have read them carefully. The word "paint" does not show up in either estimate.]
[Blogger: The above public comments from Larry Leitzow are from my notes. I have listened to the recording a couple of times now and taken notes as fast as the pen would smoke across the page. It is still not a court reporter's transcript, but I can assure you that nothing has been turned around. If anything, the notes are milder than the remarks came across in the meeting, because tone of voice cannot be conveyed--and, to use a tag line from an ad, tone of voice is "priceless."]
Foreword: The following is in italics to distinguish it from my on-the-spot notes.
Larry Leitzow, 4266 S.R. 82: I haven't said much for 9 months because everything I say gets turned around and put on certain blogs. But that's OK. I can take it.
#1 tonight: You guys have sat here and argued about something that doesn't mean nothin'. [Sic.]
As far as the newsletter, Vic, I don't care if they throw them all away if they get advertising and are willing to pay for it.
Vic attempted to say something here.
Larry: Now wait a minute--I'm talking.
Jason: Larry, be respectful.
Larry: Let him be respectful. They are not all going to go in the trash bin. I have been in Barky's and watch people come in there and they pick up the Record Courier and "Mantua Matters." They don't all go in the trash bin. Everybody does not have a computer, Vic. I don't have one and don't need one.
There are a lot of people don't get their paper delivered. They go to Haylett's or Barky's or the Little Store. What is the difference if it is paid for.
I agree--everything costs something. Like the free paint on this building. It will be between $12,000 and $20,000 for this building.
I don't want to go on too much. The signs for the cemetery are done and can be picked up.
Vic: You're done now, and I can talk? I don't want to disrespect you. . . . We have to stay within the boundaries of the ORC. [Blogger: See above. Vic's opening remark there is accurate.] That is what I am asking John Festa to do. Look at the opinion from the Attorney General about advertising.
Larry: I have no idea what you are talking about. If other townships are doing it, it must be OK.
[After a meeting, Larry and John Festa either walk out together, or they get together afterward. Now really, dear reader, who do you think is giving the advice then, and who is taking it?]
Vic: All townships should look at the AG's opinion. That is what I am asking him to do, but he told me here tonight he didn't see any use to do that.
The paint is already bought. It hasn't approached $20,000.
Larry: OK. $11,000 for the one from what's his name and $15,00 from the other. [Blogger: I am not going back to check on the pennies for this comment. It's close enough, and closer than Larry's original remark.]
Larry, continuing: I know where that's going when they rip into it.
Jason: [We're going to] pay the bills and then have an executive session for personnel.
The trustees paid the bills and then went into executive session. Those of us who decided to stay went outside and were grateful that it was not as cold as it had been.
A final word: I used to dismiss TV as pablum for the brain, and most of it probably still is. But sometimes there is a solid gold nugget. What follows is one of them, the thought for today.
Hate corrodes what contains it.
This post has not been exhaustively proofread for typographical errors. I have checked the match between the post and the comments as uttered.
Dawn Pechman, [Robin Park]: It is National Sunshine Week. I have noticed government entities that have their records in order run better. Mantua Township still does not have a good handle on its records.
[Blogger: This is Dawn's opinion, which she has been stating since I first saw her in a meeting in 2005 or earlier. If she were correct in her assertions, she could take the township to court; there are hefty fines for not complying with open records law.]
[ I understand that she also has her own standards of evaluation for such things, which apparently to her trump any others, going by her ongoing complaints.]
Dawn, continuing: The township website does not have correct dates of meetings on the website. The website needs to be expanded and I would be happy to give my ideas about it.
Then she referred to the blog by my name and the blog title as stating that there had been a six-minute executive session. She misread the statement in the blog. Jason told her not to use names.
Next Dawn asked about administrative leave: It requires a doctor's slip to come back?
Jason: It sure does. Jason also stated that, in addition, the trustees would have to approve the return to work.
Dawn: The survey was not worth the time and a lot of time has been spent about 15 responses.
[This is pure Dawn: choose a small segment of an issue to deflect attention from the bigger picture or to reinterpret it to suit her. I saw her try it in court once, and watching the judge and the lawyer stop that cold was very satisfying. Where is the deflection in the above remark of hers? In the e-mail trail connected with the whole thing.]
Larry Leitzow, S.R. 82: I haven't said much in 9 months because everything I say gets turned around and put on certain blogs.
Tonight you have argued for nearly 3 hours [about the newsletter and website.] I don't have a computer and don't want one. I pick up a paper. [Hmm. But he referred to the blog.]
What difference does it make if there is advertising? People in Barky's pick up the Record Courier and "Mantua Matters." I don't know if "Mantua Matters" has advertising. Everybody does not have a computer and I don't have one and don't need one. A lot of people don't even get their papers delivered. If someone is paying for it it is not coming out of the township.
Everything costs something. The free paint job on this building is going to be $12,000 to $20,000 for free painting on this building.
[Somewhere in here, Vic and Larry tried to talk over each other and Larry stopped Vic by demanding some respect. I am biting my tongue right now.]
Vic: So I can respond [now]. I don't want to disrespect you. My biggest concern is waste of money and we have to stay within the boundaries of the Ohio Revised Code (ORC). Look at this opinion from the Ohio Attorney General. There is a concern about advertising.
Larry: If other townships are doing it, it must be OK.
Vic: It depends on the prosecutor in other counties. I am asking John Festa to contact Chris Meduri. He can consult him [but] he doesn't see any reason to do it.
The paint is [already] purchased. The $15,000 to $20,000 is not for paint.
[Blogger: The estimates are for $11, 580 and $15,300. I asked for both and have read them carefully. The word "paint" does not show up in either estimate.]
[Blogger: The above public comments from Larry Leitzow are from my notes. I have listened to the recording a couple of times now and taken notes as fast as the pen would smoke across the page. It is still not a court reporter's transcript, but I can assure you that nothing has been turned around. If anything, the notes are milder than the remarks came across in the meeting, because tone of voice cannot be conveyed--and, to use a tag line from an ad, tone of voice is "priceless."]
Foreword: The following is in italics to distinguish it from my on-the-spot notes.
Larry Leitzow, 4266 S.R. 82: I haven't said much for 9 months because everything I say gets turned around and put on certain blogs. But that's OK. I can take it.
#1 tonight: You guys have sat here and argued about something that doesn't mean nothin'. [Sic.]
As far as the newsletter, Vic, I don't care if they throw them all away if they get advertising and are willing to pay for it.
Vic attempted to say something here.
Larry: Now wait a minute--I'm talking.
Jason: Larry, be respectful.
Larry: Let him be respectful. They are not all going to go in the trash bin. I have been in Barky's and watch people come in there and they pick up the Record Courier and "Mantua Matters." They don't all go in the trash bin. Everybody does not have a computer, Vic. I don't have one and don't need one.
There are a lot of people don't get their paper delivered. They go to Haylett's or Barky's or the Little Store. What is the difference if it is paid for.
I agree--everything costs something. Like the free paint on this building. It will be between $12,000 and $20,000 for this building.
I don't want to go on too much. The signs for the cemetery are done and can be picked up.
Vic: You're done now, and I can talk? I don't want to disrespect you. . . . We have to stay within the boundaries of the ORC. [Blogger: See above. Vic's opening remark there is accurate.] That is what I am asking John Festa to do. Look at the opinion from the Attorney General about advertising.
Larry: I have no idea what you are talking about. If other townships are doing it, it must be OK.
[After a meeting, Larry and John Festa either walk out together, or they get together afterward. Now really, dear reader, who do you think is giving the advice then, and who is taking it?]
Vic: All townships should look at the AG's opinion. That is what I am asking him to do, but he told me here tonight he didn't see any use to do that.
The paint is already bought. It hasn't approached $20,000.
Larry: OK. $11,000 for the one from what's his name and $15,00 from the other. [Blogger: I am not going back to check on the pennies for this comment. It's close enough, and closer than Larry's original remark.]
Larry, continuing: I know where that's going when they rip into it.
Jason: [We're going to] pay the bills and then have an executive session for personnel.
The trustees paid the bills and then went into executive session. Those of us who decided to stay went outside and were grateful that it was not as cold as it had been.
A final word: I used to dismiss TV as pablum for the brain, and most of it probably still is. But sometimes there is a solid gold nugget. What follows is one of them, the thought for today.
Hate corrodes what contains it.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
3-20-14: Public Comment--Good Advice; Disclaimers, Dodges, & CYA
First in public comment was Mark Hall.
Mark Hall, Loris Avenue: [I am] a little frustrated about the website. I agree a little about what you were saying. Write an article and say what you want and publish it. [Regarding] the other website--you have the capability of doing your own articles.
[Blogger: The next comment is really unusual for Mark]: Don't sit and beef and bellyache about things not happening. Run your own articles; do it and be done. So I got that off my chest.
[Blogger, continuing: All of the discussion about the website dodges the fact that it is the trustees' voice to the township, but they are talking about its problems as if they have no control over them. The website is the product of their activity--or lack of it.]
Mark, continuing: Second, regarding the subdivision plat--Is this a standard subdivision or conservation?
Jason didn't know.
Mark, continuing: The regulations are different for each type.
Third, Time Warner Cable for phones: Check into the reliability of the cable system. Where I am, I do not have my phone with my cable because the cable is so unreliable. I have never had an issue with the hard wiring the school has.
Sue Skrovan, Wayne Road: My comments are two.
In all the years I have been coming to trustees' meetings, I have observed that when people have a problem they have always been able to find a meeting.
The board communication is face to face. You provide that in open public meeting, so I don't know what information the public isn't getting, with 3 newspapers and our website and public meetings.
Lynn Harvey, Mennonite Road: I am speaking for the Zoning Board. After the plat map discussion I thought along the same lines as Mark Hall. Sue[Zoning Board secretary] has offered to go back into the minutes to determine what that Phase 2 is. If it is an overlay, it will have to come before the zoning inspector and the board. I am not sure; it was so long ago that LaDue was started.. I did not see the word "overlay" on that. I want to make sure we follow the right procedure.
Jason: You have until April 9.
Lynn: My other statement is a follow up to the concerns of the BZA. We had two people from each goard get together informally to discuss the problem. The Zoning Commission has a better idea of the concerns and is taking them under advisement.
I also addressed the concerns/comments about the zoning book. I had extensive discussion with Chris Meduri, and he assures me that the zoning book is fine. He has every confidence in the quality of the book, which was written by professionals and was vetted by many pairs of eyes, including legal eyes.
[Blogger: The computer decided to boldface the above line, and I am going to leave it that way.]
Lynn: People may not like it and may take potshots at it, [but the book is sound.]
Carole Pollard, Allyu Road: Someone spoke about this at the last meeting. It does not matter what you
do to get the word out. If people don't look, they aren't going to find it. You are doing what you can afford. Sue Skrovan is right--people will find the meetings.
The other thing is the discussion about just putting on one part of the Todd Peetz survey. I would suggest that in the interest of transparency, the second part be posted also. It is part of public record; everyone can get it. Not putting it up would lead people to wonder if you are hiding something, especially with the talk about transparency. I understand that scrolling down through all those answers can make your eyes glaze because [the sheer number of responses] is bewildering. But people who really want to know will make the effort [to understand.] The ones who want to just blather on will.
The other thing I want to address is that I still hear echoes that the school has to be done right. Everyone has heard the next statement:
The perfect is the enemy of the possible.
That's an abstract statement. I want everyone in the room to think about it in human terms. Every human being is an example of the possible. If Nature permitted only the perfect to be born, how many people would be sitting in this room? Would anybody?
From another perspective, if Nature permitted only the perfect to be born, what possibility of joy would have been lost to parents and grandparents?
That is the same approach as saying that we have to do the building all at once and do it right. If we apply that to the [school] building, we will never get into it.
I also want to say that it has been 10 years. Even a bad plan gives you something to work with. You can't develop a cost until you have a plan, and you can't develop a plan until you look at [the building.]
Cal Brant and Ronnie Stamm looked at this building, and they gave estimates. I don't think anyone has looked at the school from [the perspective] of what to do with it. Jason, if I lose something and say I can't find it, I can't find it, sure enough, I can't find it. If I say Where is it, I often find it within a half hour.
Todd Peetz has done a lot of work for us in the best of faith. There are lots and lots of bright, interesting people in this community. They can see things you can't. If you get those committees set up and let them run, they will have ownership. They will be far more willing to support what is proposed than if something just gets landed on them. Trust the people, Jason.
I taught problem solving when I was working. I was astonished at what people came up with. Right now, you have yourself mired in the situation and if you do that you are stuck.
Everyone knows you didn't study to be a project manager. People can help you and they would be glad to. Give them a chance. It won't cost us anything. I think Todd Peetz can coach the committees. No one here should do that. There is too much temptation to lean on the committees to do what they want [not what the committee develops.]
The voters are your bosses--and they are sitting in this room. We are just as much your bosses as the people out on the roads [in the township].
Dave Pollard, S.R. 82: We can not use the military the way they do in other countries. Vic, in your past work with the government, it might be worth contacting the National Guard or Army Reserves for a temporary bridge to be used only for emergency vehicular traffic for the bridge across the river. Each vehicle could be given a transponder that would open the gate. You would not have someone sneaking over the bridge. In the interest of safety it might be worth doing it. It is a five-mile detour. If Auburn wants to help, that is fine, but if they have to go clear to the high school, it is a long way.
Jason, as you know, I am no computer whiz--I can't afford the windows to throw it out of. My understanding is that Wi Fi is not secure. I am not sure that would be the best way to go. As far as putting the phone in with cable, I have friends who did that and had to buy a cell phone because the cable went out so often.
At the last meeting I was named as the person who more or less led to the survey being botched, if not the one that skewered it in Mr. Festa's words; [the remedy was to] ask Todd Peetz to take out one positive response. You would have 13 positive and one against. Somebody who had that link gave it to that reporter. You guys can ask yourselves who had the link. You guys had it; someone gave it to the reporter.
On the other hand, the people have spoken. After all these years, that has been acknowledged.
We are not getting our money's worth out of the township website. That was supposed to solve our problems. We are not getting our money's worth.
Jason: If you have suggestions, give that to us after the meeting.
Dave: I have to laugh when I hear both of you voice concerns about it because both of you praised it.
Jason made a comment here that I missed.
Dave: Whether it is the trustees or Brent Simon, we are not getting our money's worth. It is rather comical to hear the two of you complain about the website and say that we need a print medium.
Jason: I have not complained about it. I stated this evening that the trustees combine their concerns and bring them to the next meeting. We can't address what we don't know about. John Festa and Vic have both said there are concerns. The website is only as good as what we put on it, and Brent Simon only puts on what we put on.
Dave: You and Mr. Festa presented yourselves as computer literate. You should know what it needs by looking at it. You are in charge of it. You two use computers all the time and seem to like them. You should know by going on it what the deficiencies are.
Jason: We can't possibly put ourselves into the mind into the heads of township residents.
[Blogger: I don't think anyone is talking about mind reading. The website still lacks important information. That should be very obvious from scrolling through it. Logic should make that clear. Jason works in information technology--which I would think deals with how to spot gaps in information. Is his defense here another example of Jason's version of accountability?]
[Also--the above is a shortened version of the exchanges between Dave and Jason. Basically it was more of the same: Dave pushing about not getting our money's worth and the lack of quality despite Jason and John Festa's knowledge of computers, and Jason shifting the focus or responsibility and claiming no knowledge of the problem.]
Steve Zielinski, S.R. 44: The link that was supposedly leaked to the reporter. It was also on the mantua historical restoration society website. There are three officers in this room. There was a link on that website.
[Blogger: There is an error of fact here. The Mantua Historical Society and The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., are separate entities. If Steve himself looked at a website, he should know which one it was. If he's carrying water for someone else, then he was not given correct information.]
Steve, continuing: There are 3 officers in this room. There was a link on that website.
Steve, continuing: When you go back to the survey [at the Civic Center], there were 50-60 people there. That does not represent the whole township.
[Blogger: Point 1: Neither does the crowd at Larry's barn, nor the group he marshaled to come to the meetings at the Civic Center. But he still insisted that the building should be torn down. If anyone can point to a society in which everybody votes, my hat is of f to him or her. In a police state, maybe everyone votes. Or the despots report that everyone voted, and the ruling dictator got 100% of the vote.]
[Point 2: We were waiting to see how long it would be before someone on the hostile side started to squawk about the big discrepancy in the percentages not being representative of the township. Next I expect they will be baying about putting it to the voters. Right. Ballot issues cost money. I suspect that, despite their outcry about the burden the school is to the taxpayers, the hostiles are willing to spend any amount of OUR money in order to try to prove that we should not have the school as a center of government and the heart of our township.]
Vic: I want to address that about the link. I was not aware of it until it came out in the paper. I called Todd Peetz and asked him, and he explained that it was the Chamber of Commerce survey. He had not seen it. I asked him how it worked. He read the article and called me back and said he did not know how it got out there.
Steve: How did it get on their website?
Dave spoke up: From the newspaper.
Vic: Todd Peetz checked his e-mail on Thursday about 9-9:30 in the morning. There were already 49 hits on it. He also had an interview with the reporter. So somehow it got in the poaper.
Steve: There were two places the link shouldn't have gone.
Vic: I did not know what was going on until I read the article.
Dave added something about when it was put on the restoration society website, and then Jason moved on to Dawn Pechman. Except for the next comment, this post ends here; it is long enough as is. Stay tuned. Only rough-proofread.
[Blogger: Steve should be more careful about who he speaks for. I doubt that he was told how clear the paper trail is on this incident, with one gap. When you know the players, it's easy to fill in that gap logically, but the fact cannot be verified. There is a lot of stagecraft and CYA involved here.]
Mark Hall, Loris Avenue: [I am] a little frustrated about the website. I agree a little about what you were saying. Write an article and say what you want and publish it. [Regarding] the other website--you have the capability of doing your own articles.
[Blogger: The next comment is really unusual for Mark]: Don't sit and beef and bellyache about things not happening. Run your own articles; do it and be done. So I got that off my chest.
[Blogger, continuing: All of the discussion about the website dodges the fact that it is the trustees' voice to the township, but they are talking about its problems as if they have no control over them. The website is the product of their activity--or lack of it.]
Mark, continuing: Second, regarding the subdivision plat--Is this a standard subdivision or conservation?
Jason didn't know.
Mark, continuing: The regulations are different for each type.
Third, Time Warner Cable for phones: Check into the reliability of the cable system. Where I am, I do not have my phone with my cable because the cable is so unreliable. I have never had an issue with the hard wiring the school has.
Sue Skrovan, Wayne Road: My comments are two.
In all the years I have been coming to trustees' meetings, I have observed that when people have a problem they have always been able to find a meeting.
The board communication is face to face. You provide that in open public meeting, so I don't know what information the public isn't getting, with 3 newspapers and our website and public meetings.
Lynn Harvey, Mennonite Road: I am speaking for the Zoning Board. After the plat map discussion I thought along the same lines as Mark Hall. Sue[Zoning Board secretary] has offered to go back into the minutes to determine what that Phase 2 is. If it is an overlay, it will have to come before the zoning inspector and the board. I am not sure; it was so long ago that LaDue was started.. I did not see the word "overlay" on that. I want to make sure we follow the right procedure.
Jason: You have until April 9.
Lynn: My other statement is a follow up to the concerns of the BZA. We had two people from each goard get together informally to discuss the problem. The Zoning Commission has a better idea of the concerns and is taking them under advisement.
I also addressed the concerns/comments about the zoning book. I had extensive discussion with Chris Meduri, and he assures me that the zoning book is fine. He has every confidence in the quality of the book, which was written by professionals and was vetted by many pairs of eyes, including legal eyes.
[Blogger: The computer decided to boldface the above line, and I am going to leave it that way.]
Lynn: People may not like it and may take potshots at it, [but the book is sound.]
Carole Pollard, Allyu Road: Someone spoke about this at the last meeting. It does not matter what you
do to get the word out. If people don't look, they aren't going to find it. You are doing what you can afford. Sue Skrovan is right--people will find the meetings.
The other thing is the discussion about just putting on one part of the Todd Peetz survey. I would suggest that in the interest of transparency, the second part be posted also. It is part of public record; everyone can get it. Not putting it up would lead people to wonder if you are hiding something, especially with the talk about transparency. I understand that scrolling down through all those answers can make your eyes glaze because [the sheer number of responses] is bewildering. But people who really want to know will make the effort [to understand.] The ones who want to just blather on will.
The other thing I want to address is that I still hear echoes that the school has to be done right. Everyone has heard the next statement:
The perfect is the enemy of the possible.
That's an abstract statement. I want everyone in the room to think about it in human terms. Every human being is an example of the possible. If Nature permitted only the perfect to be born, how many people would be sitting in this room? Would anybody?
From another perspective, if Nature permitted only the perfect to be born, what possibility of joy would have been lost to parents and grandparents?
That is the same approach as saying that we have to do the building all at once and do it right. If we apply that to the [school] building, we will never get into it.
I also want to say that it has been 10 years. Even a bad plan gives you something to work with. You can't develop a cost until you have a plan, and you can't develop a plan until you look at [the building.]
Cal Brant and Ronnie Stamm looked at this building, and they gave estimates. I don't think anyone has looked at the school from [the perspective] of what to do with it. Jason, if I lose something and say I can't find it, I can't find it, sure enough, I can't find it. If I say Where is it, I often find it within a half hour.
Todd Peetz has done a lot of work for us in the best of faith. There are lots and lots of bright, interesting people in this community. They can see things you can't. If you get those committees set up and let them run, they will have ownership. They will be far more willing to support what is proposed than if something just gets landed on them. Trust the people, Jason.
I taught problem solving when I was working. I was astonished at what people came up with. Right now, you have yourself mired in the situation and if you do that you are stuck.
Everyone knows you didn't study to be a project manager. People can help you and they would be glad to. Give them a chance. It won't cost us anything. I think Todd Peetz can coach the committees. No one here should do that. There is too much temptation to lean on the committees to do what they want [not what the committee develops.]
The voters are your bosses--and they are sitting in this room. We are just as much your bosses as the people out on the roads [in the township].
Dave Pollard, S.R. 82: We can not use the military the way they do in other countries. Vic, in your past work with the government, it might be worth contacting the National Guard or Army Reserves for a temporary bridge to be used only for emergency vehicular traffic for the bridge across the river. Each vehicle could be given a transponder that would open the gate. You would not have someone sneaking over the bridge. In the interest of safety it might be worth doing it. It is a five-mile detour. If Auburn wants to help, that is fine, but if they have to go clear to the high school, it is a long way.
Jason, as you know, I am no computer whiz--I can't afford the windows to throw it out of. My understanding is that Wi Fi is not secure. I am not sure that would be the best way to go. As far as putting the phone in with cable, I have friends who did that and had to buy a cell phone because the cable went out so often.
At the last meeting I was named as the person who more or less led to the survey being botched, if not the one that skewered it in Mr. Festa's words; [the remedy was to] ask Todd Peetz to take out one positive response. You would have 13 positive and one against. Somebody who had that link gave it to that reporter. You guys can ask yourselves who had the link. You guys had it; someone gave it to the reporter.
On the other hand, the people have spoken. After all these years, that has been acknowledged.
We are not getting our money's worth out of the township website. That was supposed to solve our problems. We are not getting our money's worth.
Jason: If you have suggestions, give that to us after the meeting.
Dave: I have to laugh when I hear both of you voice concerns about it because both of you praised it.
Jason made a comment here that I missed.
Dave: Whether it is the trustees or Brent Simon, we are not getting our money's worth. It is rather comical to hear the two of you complain about the website and say that we need a print medium.
Jason: I have not complained about it. I stated this evening that the trustees combine their concerns and bring them to the next meeting. We can't address what we don't know about. John Festa and Vic have both said there are concerns. The website is only as good as what we put on it, and Brent Simon only puts on what we put on.
Dave: You and Mr. Festa presented yourselves as computer literate. You should know what it needs by looking at it. You are in charge of it. You two use computers all the time and seem to like them. You should know by going on it what the deficiencies are.
Jason: We can't possibly put ourselves into the mind into the heads of township residents.
[Blogger: I don't think anyone is talking about mind reading. The website still lacks important information. That should be very obvious from scrolling through it. Logic should make that clear. Jason works in information technology--which I would think deals with how to spot gaps in information. Is his defense here another example of Jason's version of accountability?]
[Also--the above is a shortened version of the exchanges between Dave and Jason. Basically it was more of the same: Dave pushing about not getting our money's worth and the lack of quality despite Jason and John Festa's knowledge of computers, and Jason shifting the focus or responsibility and claiming no knowledge of the problem.]
Steve Zielinski, S.R. 44: The link that was supposedly leaked to the reporter. It was also on the mantua historical restoration society website. There are three officers in this room. There was a link on that website.
[Blogger: There is an error of fact here. The Mantua Historical Society and The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., are separate entities. If Steve himself looked at a website, he should know which one it was. If he's carrying water for someone else, then he was not given correct information.]
Steve, continuing: There are 3 officers in this room. There was a link on that website.
Steve, continuing: When you go back to the survey [at the Civic Center], there were 50-60 people there. That does not represent the whole township.
[Blogger: Point 1: Neither does the crowd at Larry's barn, nor the group he marshaled to come to the meetings at the Civic Center. But he still insisted that the building should be torn down. If anyone can point to a society in which everybody votes, my hat is of f to him or her. In a police state, maybe everyone votes. Or the despots report that everyone voted, and the ruling dictator got 100% of the vote.]
[Point 2: We were waiting to see how long it would be before someone on the hostile side started to squawk about the big discrepancy in the percentages not being representative of the township. Next I expect they will be baying about putting it to the voters. Right. Ballot issues cost money. I suspect that, despite their outcry about the burden the school is to the taxpayers, the hostiles are willing to spend any amount of OUR money in order to try to prove that we should not have the school as a center of government and the heart of our township.]
Vic: I want to address that about the link. I was not aware of it until it came out in the paper. I called Todd Peetz and asked him, and he explained that it was the Chamber of Commerce survey. He had not seen it. I asked him how it worked. He read the article and called me back and said he did not know how it got out there.
Steve: How did it get on their website?
Dave spoke up: From the newspaper.
Vic: Todd Peetz checked his e-mail on Thursday about 9-9:30 in the morning. There were already 49 hits on it. He also had an interview with the reporter. So somehow it got in the poaper.
Steve: There were two places the link shouldn't have gone.
Vic: I did not know what was going on until I read the article.
Dave added something about when it was put on the restoration society website, and then Jason moved on to Dawn Pechman. Except for the next comment, this post ends here; it is long enough as is. Stay tuned. Only rough-proofread.
[Blogger: Steve should be more careful about who he speaks for. I doubt that he was told how clear the paper trail is on this incident, with one gap. When you know the players, it's easy to fill in that gap logically, but the fact cannot be verified. There is a lot of stagecraft and CYA involved here.]
Friday, March 28, 2014
3-20-14, Trustees: Center School: Jason starts over yet again
[Blogger Foreword: The discussion about the Center School, the proposed newsletter, and public comment will all be in detail or as close as possible to an actual transcript from the recording. Why? God and the Devil alike are in the details. Readers should see for themselves.
[This is not quite verbatim, partly because sometimes people were talking over each other, partly because when people are thinking on their feet, some of what they say is just filler and buying time to formulate a real thought (that is not a criticism; it's reality for all of us), and partly because some pretty loud coughing and traffic noise obscured some remarks. But there was enough repetition so that if one sentence didn't make it into my notes, several others along the same lines did.
[One more thing: there are a lot of words here. Ask yourself how many of them actually move us forward on the school and help to get us into it and how many of them keep us dead in the water. Forget about who said what. Who said anything that actually moved us forward? Did anybody?]
Jason, Center School: A while back in August [2013] I contacted a few architecture firms and I told them our situation of the building we had and the direction the trustees were going with trying to get the community involvement [Blogger: They were trying to do that? Did I blink and miss it?} and coming up with some sort of ideas on the facility and about how to move forward.
I am not a project planner [1] and neither is any of the trustees. We can not do this by ourselves. We also need some professional involvement. I had gotten this back up again. This was the only firm that was willing to come out and take a look at the project as a whole. Not one person came out from Moody and Nolan; three people came out: their director of Cleveland operations, an architect, and an associate.
They proposed a four-pronged approach. [First], a conceptual and programming analysis which is about what Regional Planning did.
[Here, Jason read from the letter. What he may or may not have read was that this section referred to a meeting with the trustees and another one with the community. Can someone give me a count of how many community meetings that would make to assess the needs of the community?]
Jason, continuing: That would be a $3500 conceptual programming fee.
Step 2--conceptual design. Develop exterior concept of facilities, floor plans and site plan. [This could] help generate interest and help with fund raising. Fee: $4500.
Step 3--Conceptual estimate, based on typical square footage costs based on the results of steps 1 and 2 and generated from the Moody and Nolan database of similar facilities. Jason: They would do all of that for us. Fee: $2500.
Step 4: Conceptual 3-D renderings. This would be a comprehensive package for public viewing. We wanted Regional Planning to go with this to get community needs and assessment. If we got some professional [advice] in a phased approach in addition with some committees from the community, we could get the community's needs and wants. Step 4 carries a fee of $6500.
[Blogger: So, for all of this preliminary handholding, the township would pay about $17,000 and we would not have lifted a hammer. Besides, it's been done. RP Architects did a similar proposal in 2004 or earlier which would have cost about $19,000. The fee would have been rolled into the levy that RP proposed. The trustees turned it down in order not to put a tax burden on the residents. The hostiles seem to have missed that: Hello, out there! The school has not been the cause of a tax levy--but now, with two TEA Party endorsees at the front table, the idea of a levy regularly comes up in one form or another, sometimes obviously and sometimes masked.]
Jason then gave this hypothetical: If I am going to donate my time and money, I want to see things. I think that is what Moody and Nolan helped with. They have a lot of expertise not only in rehabilitating old buildings, but also in needs assessments for community buildings. They gave me an example of a community center and workout center--the whole 9 yards--for a community and presented it and from there the community was able to make solid decisions. I think we should consider having these folks come in and talk to us so we can correlate Todd's suggestions.
[Blogger: It just occurred to me that Jason is talking as if we will get something to use from whatever Moody and Nolan present. They are in business to make money, not to give advice. If they give advice, there is a price attached to it. In my opinion, we will get a sales pitch aimed at winning a contract. So we will have taken up time with another meeting that goes nowhere. Alaska has a bridge to nowhere? We have meetings to nowhere.]
Jason: I am not suggesting that we offer to pay these numbers--that would be a poor decision. But we can have them come out and talk to us; it might spark some interest and some ideas about how we can move forward. Those are my thoughts. I think tonight we ought to schedule a meeting to talk about this project as a whole and move forward. I would like to hear your thoughts.
John Festa: The marketing ideas--you always want to have something to present to people to see how it will look, but we still need to know how much this is going to cost. We already know from the survey that people in the community want the school. That was obvious from the survey that Todd Peetz did. For us to decide on only 3 or 4 of those things, we still need to know what it will cost.
One of the most important things is what will it cost, can we afford it, and what services do we have to give up to get it. Maybe they will have some suggestions about getting a cost analysis done. People in the community need to know how much this project will cost. Our funds--we are balanced between fixing this building and talking about buying a truck and fixing the roads. We have a lot going on. If you want to bring these folks in, I have no objection.
Vic: You don't think Todd can help us with some of this information?
Jason: I forwarded this to Todd early on when we began this conversation. Todd said they do not have the expertise in their office to do this. When I requested that Moody and Nolan [to] come out, they asked me about a hundred questions. They are from Cleveland and were trying to get an idea of the general surroundings and interests of the public. They had not seen what Regional Planning has came [sic] out with. But when they came out, they brought three people. They were very interested in helping us out. [Blogger: They were very interested in getting a contract to "help us out." This is business, not coaching Little League.] They did not know how deep we would get into things.
I don't know if any of their figures would change because of the scope of the work. I think it would be worth at least having them come and talk to us.
We are not project managers. [2] How deep do we get into this? There are a lot of different things to go down. [? Not quite sure of that word.] There are money symbols with everything. The first flow--how do we do that? How do we make these ideas a reality?
I saw how I struggled with that because I am not a project manager. [3] How do we bring it all together?
Vic: We had a couple of estimates of how to do the first floor and [one] was broke [sic] down with volunteers and Todd brought out how they rented out space and had volunteers help.
Jason: I think we ought to bring those estimates back. [Blogger: I believe those estimates may be two years old, and they were sneered out of the room when they were presented. Well, one of them was. The other two were ignored.]
I would like to see these folks come out. Maybe we will say it isn't for us. Whatever we go with, we will have to spend money one way or another even with the help of volunteers.
Vic: It wouldn't be bad to hear what they have to say, but I still like the idea of us trying to get the committees going. Maybe we should try some of these committees first and see what we can get done before we look at it.
Jason: I am 100% in agreement. I think we should have some committees, but I would like to hear what they have to say. Maybe they really have some ideas of how we can move forward with some of this right now.
There are a lot of good suggestions and ideas in here [Blogger: The focus shifted with this to the survey Todd conducted.] But how do we prioritize this list? It is excellent information. We have eleven good ideas that got a lot of votes, from township offices down to retail. How do we prioritize that list and move forward? Todd gave us an idea of developing these committees but I think we should get some additional information from a company that has experience doing all of this.
Vic: But they are not from Portage County and don't know our area. It would be nice if there was an architect in the area. It wouldn't hurt to hear what they have to say.
Jason: One of the things, too, when they came out in August, they were asking a lot of good questions: what type of industry do we have. They also mentioned something interesting things, like expanding the building into the parking lot, and have you thought of having industry to come in?
I said, "No."
They were definitely outside the box thinkers.
John Festa: I don't want to get tied down again. I don't want to kick this can down the road. I think it is time to sit down and figure out what direction we are going to go. Are we going to do this project? Or are we going to . . . .
Jason: What does doing it mean? Do you want to go full-project with an elevator and sprinkler system?
John Festa: I don't know. [Blogger: Hmm. At one point, he was insisting that we need both, or at least, certainly, the elevator. Now he doesn't know.]
Jason: Does it mean we fully renovate the building?
John Festa: There are all kinds of suggestions, but to just keep going around in circles doesn't make any sense. I would just like to know how much this is going to cost. But we don't know how much it is going to cost; then we can figure out how to go forward.
Jason: Everybody knows how much it is going to cost. The problem is that nobody knows how to answer the question. [Eh?] Now that we know what the community needs and wants are, maybe we take the top 2 or 3 at this time. I don't know if that is the best approach., How do we determine what the cost is going to be? I am not a project manager [4], so I don't know how to figure this out.
John Festa: The people have spoken and said this is what they want. They are our boss and we should give them what they want and can we afford to do this.
Jason: Let me ask you this: a place for special events, township offices, non profits. I don't know what those mean. Office space. W to hone in on this--what kind of non profits.
A community center has been on this list for a long time. What does that mean? How many tables? How many chairs? What does it take to develop a community center?
I am not an architect or planner [5]. They [Moody and Nolan] are people who do this They are people that are experts who know what it takes.
John Festa: Vic stated that they [Moody and Nolan] don't know what we want But the community has spoken.
Jason: This has nothing to do with community assessment. They are people who are experts in doing projects. They can walk us through them. We can bring them in for information.
John Festa: I don't want to keep going around in circles. We had the survey done. This is what people want. How much will it cost? Can we afford it?
Jason: Professionals don't do it themselves. They hire someone who can walk them through the project phase [? Not sure phase is the right word.] We are a community.
Vic: As far as the community meetings we had and compiling the information Todd gave us, it hasn't changed that much. When we bought it: township offices, community center, ADA, shelter. That hasn't changed.
Jason: How do we make this a reality?
Vic: I don't see any problem setting up a meeting. We did the same thing before we bought the building. We had an architect firm come up and study it.
Jason: Do we want to set something . . . . I hesitate to set something up tonight that they might not be able to do. Let me see if I can get a time from them.
I am in agreement with everybody.
[Blogger: I think that's it on the school. There was a lot of discussion about getting the trustees' message out, but that does not strike me as being of the same level of long-term importance as the school building. Once I have recovered from this stint, I may do that discussion, because it had some gems in it. Right now, however, this is all she wrote for this round. Another post not really proofread.]
[This is not quite verbatim, partly because sometimes people were talking over each other, partly because when people are thinking on their feet, some of what they say is just filler and buying time to formulate a real thought (that is not a criticism; it's reality for all of us), and partly because some pretty loud coughing and traffic noise obscured some remarks. But there was enough repetition so that if one sentence didn't make it into my notes, several others along the same lines did.
[One more thing: there are a lot of words here. Ask yourself how many of them actually move us forward on the school and help to get us into it and how many of them keep us dead in the water. Forget about who said what. Who said anything that actually moved us forward? Did anybody?]
Jason, Center School: A while back in August [2013] I contacted a few architecture firms and I told them our situation of the building we had and the direction the trustees were going with trying to get the community involvement [Blogger: They were trying to do that? Did I blink and miss it?} and coming up with some sort of ideas on the facility and about how to move forward.
I am not a project planner [1] and neither is any of the trustees. We can not do this by ourselves. We also need some professional involvement. I had gotten this back up again. This was the only firm that was willing to come out and take a look at the project as a whole. Not one person came out from Moody and Nolan; three people came out: their director of Cleveland operations, an architect, and an associate.
They proposed a four-pronged approach. [First], a conceptual and programming analysis which is about what Regional Planning did.
[Here, Jason read from the letter. What he may or may not have read was that this section referred to a meeting with the trustees and another one with the community. Can someone give me a count of how many community meetings that would make to assess the needs of the community?]
Jason, continuing: That would be a $3500 conceptual programming fee.
Step 2--conceptual design. Develop exterior concept of facilities, floor plans and site plan. [This could] help generate interest and help with fund raising. Fee: $4500.
Step 3--Conceptual estimate, based on typical square footage costs based on the results of steps 1 and 2 and generated from the Moody and Nolan database of similar facilities. Jason: They would do all of that for us. Fee: $2500.
Step 4: Conceptual 3-D renderings. This would be a comprehensive package for public viewing. We wanted Regional Planning to go with this to get community needs and assessment. If we got some professional [advice] in a phased approach in addition with some committees from the community, we could get the community's needs and wants. Step 4 carries a fee of $6500.
[Blogger: So, for all of this preliminary handholding, the township would pay about $17,000 and we would not have lifted a hammer. Besides, it's been done. RP Architects did a similar proposal in 2004 or earlier which would have cost about $19,000. The fee would have been rolled into the levy that RP proposed. The trustees turned it down in order not to put a tax burden on the residents. The hostiles seem to have missed that: Hello, out there! The school has not been the cause of a tax levy--but now, with two TEA Party endorsees at the front table, the idea of a levy regularly comes up in one form or another, sometimes obviously and sometimes masked.]
Jason then gave this hypothetical: If I am going to donate my time and money, I want to see things. I think that is what Moody and Nolan helped with. They have a lot of expertise not only in rehabilitating old buildings, but also in needs assessments for community buildings. They gave me an example of a community center and workout center--the whole 9 yards--for a community and presented it and from there the community was able to make solid decisions. I think we should consider having these folks come in and talk to us so we can correlate Todd's suggestions.
[Blogger: It just occurred to me that Jason is talking as if we will get something to use from whatever Moody and Nolan present. They are in business to make money, not to give advice. If they give advice, there is a price attached to it. In my opinion, we will get a sales pitch aimed at winning a contract. So we will have taken up time with another meeting that goes nowhere. Alaska has a bridge to nowhere? We have meetings to nowhere.]
Jason: I am not suggesting that we offer to pay these numbers--that would be a poor decision. But we can have them come out and talk to us; it might spark some interest and some ideas about how we can move forward. Those are my thoughts. I think tonight we ought to schedule a meeting to talk about this project as a whole and move forward. I would like to hear your thoughts.
John Festa: The marketing ideas--you always want to have something to present to people to see how it will look, but we still need to know how much this is going to cost. We already know from the survey that people in the community want the school. That was obvious from the survey that Todd Peetz did. For us to decide on only 3 or 4 of those things, we still need to know what it will cost.
One of the most important things is what will it cost, can we afford it, and what services do we have to give up to get it. Maybe they will have some suggestions about getting a cost analysis done. People in the community need to know how much this project will cost. Our funds--we are balanced between fixing this building and talking about buying a truck and fixing the roads. We have a lot going on. If you want to bring these folks in, I have no objection.
Vic: You don't think Todd can help us with some of this information?
Jason: I forwarded this to Todd early on when we began this conversation. Todd said they do not have the expertise in their office to do this. When I requested that Moody and Nolan [to] come out, they asked me about a hundred questions. They are from Cleveland and were trying to get an idea of the general surroundings and interests of the public. They had not seen what Regional Planning has came [sic] out with. But when they came out, they brought three people. They were very interested in helping us out. [Blogger: They were very interested in getting a contract to "help us out." This is business, not coaching Little League.] They did not know how deep we would get into things.
I don't know if any of their figures would change because of the scope of the work. I think it would be worth at least having them come and talk to us.
We are not project managers. [2] How deep do we get into this? There are a lot of different things to go down. [? Not quite sure of that word.] There are money symbols with everything. The first flow--how do we do that? How do we make these ideas a reality?
I saw how I struggled with that because I am not a project manager. [3] How do we bring it all together?
Vic: We had a couple of estimates of how to do the first floor and [one] was broke [sic] down with volunteers and Todd brought out how they rented out space and had volunteers help.
Jason: I think we ought to bring those estimates back. [Blogger: I believe those estimates may be two years old, and they were sneered out of the room when they were presented. Well, one of them was. The other two were ignored.]
I would like to see these folks come out. Maybe we will say it isn't for us. Whatever we go with, we will have to spend money one way or another even with the help of volunteers.
Vic: It wouldn't be bad to hear what they have to say, but I still like the idea of us trying to get the committees going. Maybe we should try some of these committees first and see what we can get done before we look at it.
Jason: I am 100% in agreement. I think we should have some committees, but I would like to hear what they have to say. Maybe they really have some ideas of how we can move forward with some of this right now.
There are a lot of good suggestions and ideas in here [Blogger: The focus shifted with this to the survey Todd conducted.] But how do we prioritize this list? It is excellent information. We have eleven good ideas that got a lot of votes, from township offices down to retail. How do we prioritize that list and move forward? Todd gave us an idea of developing these committees but I think we should get some additional information from a company that has experience doing all of this.
Vic: But they are not from Portage County and don't know our area. It would be nice if there was an architect in the area. It wouldn't hurt to hear what they have to say.
Jason: One of the things, too, when they came out in August, they were asking a lot of good questions: what type of industry do we have. They also mentioned something interesting things, like expanding the building into the parking lot, and have you thought of having industry to come in?
I said, "No."
They were definitely outside the box thinkers.
John Festa: I don't want to get tied down again. I don't want to kick this can down the road. I think it is time to sit down and figure out what direction we are going to go. Are we going to do this project? Or are we going to . . . .
Jason: What does doing it mean? Do you want to go full-project with an elevator and sprinkler system?
John Festa: I don't know. [Blogger: Hmm. At one point, he was insisting that we need both, or at least, certainly, the elevator. Now he doesn't know.]
Jason: Does it mean we fully renovate the building?
John Festa: There are all kinds of suggestions, but to just keep going around in circles doesn't make any sense. I would just like to know how much this is going to cost. But we don't know how much it is going to cost; then we can figure out how to go forward.
Jason: Everybody knows how much it is going to cost. The problem is that nobody knows how to answer the question. [Eh?] Now that we know what the community needs and wants are, maybe we take the top 2 or 3 at this time. I don't know if that is the best approach., How do we determine what the cost is going to be? I am not a project manager [4], so I don't know how to figure this out.
John Festa: The people have spoken and said this is what they want. They are our boss and we should give them what they want and can we afford to do this.
Jason: Let me ask you this: a place for special events, township offices, non profits. I don't know what those mean. Office space. W to hone in on this--what kind of non profits.
A community center has been on this list for a long time. What does that mean? How many tables? How many chairs? What does it take to develop a community center?
I am not an architect or planner [5]. They [Moody and Nolan] are people who do this They are people that are experts who know what it takes.
John Festa: Vic stated that they [Moody and Nolan] don't know what we want But the community has spoken.
Jason: This has nothing to do with community assessment. They are people who are experts in doing projects. They can walk us through them. We can bring them in for information.
John Festa: I don't want to keep going around in circles. We had the survey done. This is what people want. How much will it cost? Can we afford it?
Jason: Professionals don't do it themselves. They hire someone who can walk them through the project phase [? Not sure phase is the right word.] We are a community.
Vic: As far as the community meetings we had and compiling the information Todd gave us, it hasn't changed that much. When we bought it: township offices, community center, ADA, shelter. That hasn't changed.
Jason: How do we make this a reality?
Vic: I don't see any problem setting up a meeting. We did the same thing before we bought the building. We had an architect firm come up and study it.
Jason: Do we want to set something . . . . I hesitate to set something up tonight that they might not be able to do. Let me see if I can get a time from them.
I am in agreement with everybody.
[Blogger: I think that's it on the school. There was a lot of discussion about getting the trustees' message out, but that does not strike me as being of the same level of long-term importance as the school building. Once I have recovered from this stint, I may do that discussion, because it had some gems in it. Right now, however, this is all she wrote for this round. Another post not really proofread.]
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
A Not-So-Quick Pass at a Box Score 3-20-14
[Blogger Foreword: My notes for this meeting are best calculated by the thickness of the stack of pages written on: nearly 1/2 inch. Most of what piled that up doesn't have to be recounted in detail, but some does. I will get at that later in the week. A couple of things here that have only been done as sketchy summaries will be done in full inglorious detail. Some of you who may have heard the litany "Vic's gotta go" during the election campaign. As you read this post, think about the consequences to the township if that had happened.]
The meeting began with an event that I don't ever remember before: a bill being presented without a purchase order authorizing money to be spent. Here are those notes.
Marie, part of Fiscal Officer report: There was a lot of work on the cemetery sign. $1100 worth of work so far, and there is no money in the Capital Improvements fund.
Vic: Do you have a purchase order for that?
Marie: I do now. I know I approved a couple of quarts of paint.
Jason or Vic: Do we have bills for any of that?
Marie: The paint has not been billed from Mantua Hardware yet, but Larry Leitzow signed for it and I did a purchase order for that.
Jason to Larry Leitzow: On the scroll work, $585.00 for the three scrolls to make them original?
[Blogger: I don't understand the discrepancy between Marie saying there was a bill for $1100 and Jason saying $585.00. Is there another shoe here?]
Larry: Five scrolls.
Jason: It says 3 here.
Larry: Five of them.
Jason: The originals were basically . . . .
Larry: Trash.
[The work (sandblasting) was done by the blacksmith on Taylor May Road]
Larry: Didn't you get the sandblasting bill?
Vic: Yes.
Larry: Paint from the hardware?
Marie: Yes.
Larry: There is one more from the hardware, but it is very small.
Vic: We need purchase orders for these things.
Jason: What do you need to do?
Marie: I need to transfer money from contractors [contracts?] into improvement of sites.
There was some discussion about lawn care, and then Marie reminded the trustees that they needed to approve the transfer.
Box Score begins here.
Jason: Moved to transfer $1,000 to improvement of sites. [Note, 3-28: This was to cover both signs.]
Club and Committee reports:
Garden Club, Sue Skrovan: No meeting yet, but the club will meet soon to install officers. The date will be announced.
LCA: No report.
The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., Mark Hall: Mark approached the trustees' table and gave each person there invitations to the annual meeting of the restoration society. Returning to his chair:
The restoration society would like to invite the trustees and fiscal officer to attend the annual meeting on April 27 at the school building. Doors open at 1:00 for light refreshments; business meeting at 1:30. Guest speakers will include Steve Coon and a representative of Jonathan Sandvick Architects in Cleveland. What I handed each of you was the invitation.
[Jason asked about the time again.]
Mark: Doors open at 1:00; business meeting at 1:30; speakers at 2:00. [Location is at the school building.]
John Festa: Reported on the Chamber of Commerce meeting.
Jason: In regard to the bridge closing on S.R. 44 south of Mantua, he thought that maybe a letter to ODOT was in order. No action.
Trade show in Columbus at the Township Conference. We should begin planning ahead for a new truck.
Vic added that a heavy duty truck like the two we have can cost $150,000.
Jason wondered whether the new bed on one of the trucks could be removed and installed on the new one as a cost saving.
Jason asked Vic about equipment bids.
Vic will meet with Brian Tayerle to develop the bid list.
Jason thought that a grader should be included in the list.
Jason: Thought that we should offer the V blade from the grader we sold to the same company that bought the grader. Price: about $1500.
Jason asked about the board's interest in shredding again this year.
Vic: Had already inquired. It can be done for the same cost as last year, probably on May 17. Date to be finalized.
Jason: Motion to approve renewal of the Old Country Inn's liquor license.
Vic: With Lynn Harvey, some discussion about the LaDue Reserve Phase 2 plat. John Dickey, Zoning Inspector, needs to review that and sign off on it. Vic will follow up.
John Festa reported that the Portage County and Ravenna Health Departments will be merging, which will help their accreditation. That vote will occur at their next meeting.
John Festa asked Marie for information about the audit committee [it's the trustees] and requested a copy of the Land Use Plan.
John Festa reported on the WiFi, Internet, and phone service at the school. Time Warner Cable is the only provider. [Blogger: I could not keep the numbers straight, but it looks like WiFi for $69/mo.; one-time installation fee, $99; phone service for 3 lines, $165/mo.]
Jason: (After more details from John Festa): asked that all of this be done before the next meeting.
Vic: Motion to buy 20 flags, American made, for $240, from the American Legion post.
Vic: Motion to hire Republic Services to handle the spring cleanup for May 3, 2014. Tire collection will occur as well.
Vic: Motion for summer fill of 100 tons of salt, with a winter contract for 700 tons. Jason, as chair, must sign; Vic will leave the paperwork at the school building in Jason's mailbox.
Vic: Township Hall. Vic presented sealed estimates for the repairs preparatory to painting from Cal Brant, Brant Carpentry, and Ronnie Stamm, Troy Construction. Both estimates were based on visual inspection.
Brant Carpentry: $11,580
Troy Construction: $15,300.
[Some detail is in order here]: Vic: That gives us an idea of what kind of money we are looking at. Behind the fire escape it is in bad shape.
John Festa: One company kept asking me about taking that down.
Vic: We might have to do some of the work . . . .[The rest of the sentence got blocked by noise; I was sitting off to the side for that meeting, and it made a difference in what I could hear. I could certainly see a lot, though.]
Vic: I wanted to bring that to your attention because everything [money] is so tight. We need to locate the money.
Jason, asked for information regarding the Bogden rental, on which there has been nothing:
Jason: Pony Tail League: thought the township should help out on the cost of extending the fences.
Jason: Center School: Jason talked for quite a while about this, which a subsequent post will present in detail. The short version for now is that he said three times that I have in my notes that he is not a project planner or manager and that we should talk to professionals, Moody and Nolan, who had a fee schedule for their services that some of the attendees received. The fees for preliminary work are as follows:
Conceptual programming fee: $3500
Design documents: $4500
Conceptual estimate: $2500
"Conceptual 3-D renderings" are also in my notes, without a price--but I think one was given.
[Jason referred to these consultants as "out of the box" thinkers. Right. One of their thoughts was to expand the building to take in part of the playground and get industry in. Hello! Zoning? Shalersville's experience with the IRS as a result of having a for-profit entity in their school building? Moody and Nolan are a Cleveland firm. There's a saying "If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." If you are urban and do your work mostly in cities, then the thing to do with a rural area is turn it into a city, of course.]
There was a LOT of discussion about this, and initially John Festa kept pushing to get on with it, since the people have spoken. But he also said this: "The people . . . are our boss and we should give them what they want and let them know can we afford to do this." [Blogger's boldface.]
John Festa: Reported on joint training between the road crew and the fire department in order to coordinate activities in emergencies.
John Festa: Reported on the cost of printing a newsletter and brought examples of two townships that advertised in theirs.
The blog will present this in more detail, but here is a bit of followup:
Vic: Have you contacted Chris Meduri on that?
John Festa: No. I don't see any reason why.
Vic: It was mentioned about the website. Advertising is outside the scope of the township. That is why
I recommended that you talk to him.
John Festa: I may.
The discussion then made a transition into using the website more effectively, since we are paying for it.
Vic is opposed to the newsletter because "I am afraid of the waste of money."
John Festa: It is only a couple of hundred dollars. [I will come back to that when this gets posted in detail. For now, however, I will just say that during the election campaign, people asked me where the cash reserve had gone in the past two years. Someone in Congress once said, "A million here, a million there. It adds up." For a township, a hundred here, a hundred there, it adds up.]
The other website was mentioned as confusing the issue.
Jason: Maybe as trustees we need to write a letter to the folks who own that other domain name that is confusing residents.
[Exactly who might that be? I think Brent owns the domain name but am not quite sure about that. How do you write a letter to a group cloaked in anonymity? But wait! After Jason was seated, early in his first term, there had been a lot of pressure on the trustees to put up a website. Finally, Wendy Carlton said, "We'll do one ourselves." Maybe Jason could address the letter c/o Wendy.]
Public Comment began after that, at 9:48. Some of those comments will make more sense if the detailed posts of discussion are done next. Besides, I really need to be able to get a couple of those comments absolutely verbatim, as you will see when it's all on the screen.
It's now 9:30 p.m., and there are other things to do. This post has not been proofread, but I'm sure you can cope.
8:45 Thursday 3-27: One day later. The post has been proofread and corrected to a certain extent. Invariably, when I look at the actual post and not just at the draft, more errors show up. My apologies.
The meeting began with an event that I don't ever remember before: a bill being presented without a purchase order authorizing money to be spent. Here are those notes.
Marie, part of Fiscal Officer report: There was a lot of work on the cemetery sign. $1100 worth of work so far, and there is no money in the Capital Improvements fund.
Vic: Do you have a purchase order for that?
Marie: I do now. I know I approved a couple of quarts of paint.
Jason or Vic: Do we have bills for any of that?
Marie: The paint has not been billed from Mantua Hardware yet, but Larry Leitzow signed for it and I did a purchase order for that.
Jason to Larry Leitzow: On the scroll work, $585.00 for the three scrolls to make them original?
[Blogger: I don't understand the discrepancy between Marie saying there was a bill for $1100 and Jason saying $585.00. Is there another shoe here?]
Larry: Five scrolls.
Jason: It says 3 here.
Larry: Five of them.
Jason: The originals were basically . . . .
Larry: Trash.
[The work (sandblasting) was done by the blacksmith on Taylor May Road]
Larry: Didn't you get the sandblasting bill?
Vic: Yes.
Larry: Paint from the hardware?
Marie: Yes.
Larry: There is one more from the hardware, but it is very small.
Vic: We need purchase orders for these things.
Jason: What do you need to do?
Marie: I need to transfer money from contractors [contracts?] into improvement of sites.
There was some discussion about lawn care, and then Marie reminded the trustees that they needed to approve the transfer.
Box Score begins here.
Jason: Moved to transfer $1,000 to improvement of sites. [Note, 3-28: This was to cover both signs.]
Club and Committee reports:
Garden Club, Sue Skrovan: No meeting yet, but the club will meet soon to install officers. The date will be announced.
LCA: No report.
The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., Mark Hall: Mark approached the trustees' table and gave each person there invitations to the annual meeting of the restoration society. Returning to his chair:
The restoration society would like to invite the trustees and fiscal officer to attend the annual meeting on April 27 at the school building. Doors open at 1:00 for light refreshments; business meeting at 1:30. Guest speakers will include Steve Coon and a representative of Jonathan Sandvick Architects in Cleveland. What I handed each of you was the invitation.
[Jason asked about the time again.]
Mark: Doors open at 1:00; business meeting at 1:30; speakers at 2:00. [Location is at the school building.]
John Festa: Reported on the Chamber of Commerce meeting.
Jason: In regard to the bridge closing on S.R. 44 south of Mantua, he thought that maybe a letter to ODOT was in order. No action.
Trade show in Columbus at the Township Conference. We should begin planning ahead for a new truck.
Vic added that a heavy duty truck like the two we have can cost $150,000.
Jason wondered whether the new bed on one of the trucks could be removed and installed on the new one as a cost saving.
Jason asked Vic about equipment bids.
Vic will meet with Brian Tayerle to develop the bid list.
Jason thought that a grader should be included in the list.
Jason: Thought that we should offer the V blade from the grader we sold to the same company that bought the grader. Price: about $1500.
Jason asked about the board's interest in shredding again this year.
Vic: Had already inquired. It can be done for the same cost as last year, probably on May 17. Date to be finalized.
Jason: Motion to approve renewal of the Old Country Inn's liquor license.
Vic: With Lynn Harvey, some discussion about the LaDue Reserve Phase 2 plat. John Dickey, Zoning Inspector, needs to review that and sign off on it. Vic will follow up.
John Festa reported that the Portage County and Ravenna Health Departments will be merging, which will help their accreditation. That vote will occur at their next meeting.
John Festa asked Marie for information about the audit committee [it's the trustees] and requested a copy of the Land Use Plan.
John Festa reported on the WiFi, Internet, and phone service at the school. Time Warner Cable is the only provider. [Blogger: I could not keep the numbers straight, but it looks like WiFi for $69/mo.; one-time installation fee, $99; phone service for 3 lines, $165/mo.]
Jason: (After more details from John Festa): asked that all of this be done before the next meeting.
Vic: Motion to buy 20 flags, American made, for $240, from the American Legion post.
Vic: Motion to hire Republic Services to handle the spring cleanup for May 3, 2014. Tire collection will occur as well.
Vic: Motion for summer fill of 100 tons of salt, with a winter contract for 700 tons. Jason, as chair, must sign; Vic will leave the paperwork at the school building in Jason's mailbox.
Vic: Township Hall. Vic presented sealed estimates for the repairs preparatory to painting from Cal Brant, Brant Carpentry, and Ronnie Stamm, Troy Construction. Both estimates were based on visual inspection.
Brant Carpentry: $11,580
Troy Construction: $15,300.
[Some detail is in order here]: Vic: That gives us an idea of what kind of money we are looking at. Behind the fire escape it is in bad shape.
John Festa: One company kept asking me about taking that down.
Vic: We might have to do some of the work . . . .[The rest of the sentence got blocked by noise; I was sitting off to the side for that meeting, and it made a difference in what I could hear. I could certainly see a lot, though.]
Vic: I wanted to bring that to your attention because everything [money] is so tight. We need to locate the money.
Jason, asked for information regarding the Bogden rental, on which there has been nothing:
Jason: Pony Tail League: thought the township should help out on the cost of extending the fences.
Jason: Center School: Jason talked for quite a while about this, which a subsequent post will present in detail. The short version for now is that he said three times that I have in my notes that he is not a project planner or manager and that we should talk to professionals, Moody and Nolan, who had a fee schedule for their services that some of the attendees received. The fees for preliminary work are as follows:
Conceptual programming fee: $3500
Design documents: $4500
Conceptual estimate: $2500
"Conceptual 3-D renderings" are also in my notes, without a price--but I think one was given.
[Jason referred to these consultants as "out of the box" thinkers. Right. One of their thoughts was to expand the building to take in part of the playground and get industry in. Hello! Zoning? Shalersville's experience with the IRS as a result of having a for-profit entity in their school building? Moody and Nolan are a Cleveland firm. There's a saying "If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." If you are urban and do your work mostly in cities, then the thing to do with a rural area is turn it into a city, of course.]
There was a LOT of discussion about this, and initially John Festa kept pushing to get on with it, since the people have spoken. But he also said this: "The people . . . are our boss and we should give them what they want and let them know can we afford to do this." [Blogger's boldface.]
John Festa: Reported on joint training between the road crew and the fire department in order to coordinate activities in emergencies.
John Festa: Reported on the cost of printing a newsletter and brought examples of two townships that advertised in theirs.
The blog will present this in more detail, but here is a bit of followup:
Vic: Have you contacted Chris Meduri on that?
John Festa: No. I don't see any reason why.
Vic: It was mentioned about the website. Advertising is outside the scope of the township. That is why
I recommended that you talk to him.
John Festa: I may.
The discussion then made a transition into using the website more effectively, since we are paying for it.
Vic is opposed to the newsletter because "I am afraid of the waste of money."
John Festa: It is only a couple of hundred dollars. [I will come back to that when this gets posted in detail. For now, however, I will just say that during the election campaign, people asked me where the cash reserve had gone in the past two years. Someone in Congress once said, "A million here, a million there. It adds up." For a township, a hundred here, a hundred there, it adds up.]
The other website was mentioned as confusing the issue.
Jason: Maybe as trustees we need to write a letter to the folks who own that other domain name that is confusing residents.
[Exactly who might that be? I think Brent owns the domain name but am not quite sure about that. How do you write a letter to a group cloaked in anonymity? But wait! After Jason was seated, early in his first term, there had been a lot of pressure on the trustees to put up a website. Finally, Wendy Carlton said, "We'll do one ourselves." Maybe Jason could address the letter c/o Wendy.]
Public Comment began after that, at 9:48. Some of those comments will make more sense if the detailed posts of discussion are done next. Besides, I really need to be able to get a couple of those comments absolutely verbatim, as you will see when it's all on the screen.
It's now 9:30 p.m., and there are other things to do. This post has not been proofread, but I'm sure you can cope.
8:45 Thursday 3-27: One day later. The post has been proofread and corrected to a certain extent. Invariably, when I look at the actual post and not just at the draft, more errors show up. My apologies.
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Trustees Box Score 3-7-14
Blogger: The purpose of a "Box Score" post is to strip away the talk and get to actions.
Jason Carlton:
E-mail regarding weather spotter training
E-mail from Pony Tail League
Notice about asphalt course training for road crew
Received phone call offering volunteers from a college fraternity
Motion to host Summit Freewheeler time trials in July
John Festa:
Tendered zoning inspector report and road crew report in the absence of those chiefs
Suggested putting Pt. 1 of the Todd Peetz survey on the Township website
Internet and phone at school: ATT and Windstream will not/do not provide service there
Investigating printing a newsletter; has $600 in pledges for advertising
Victor Grimm:
Is in the process of getting dumpsters and making arrangements for Township cleanup day
Reported on going to Columbus to take required records course and other training
Reported on installing heater(s) in garage; sought out information & schematics required
State attorney general advises against advertising
Stated that zoning fact sheet intended for the Township website needs to be revised and
brought into compliance with Ohio Revised Code
All: Motion following executive session
Jason Carlton:
E-mail regarding weather spotter training
E-mail from Pony Tail League
Notice about asphalt course training for road crew
Received phone call offering volunteers from a college fraternity
Motion to host Summit Freewheeler time trials in July
John Festa:
Tendered zoning inspector report and road crew report in the absence of those chiefs
Suggested putting Pt. 1 of the Todd Peetz survey on the Township website
Internet and phone at school: ATT and Windstream will not/do not provide service there
Investigating printing a newsletter; has $600 in pledges for advertising
Victor Grimm:
Is in the process of getting dumpsters and making arrangements for Township cleanup day
Reported on going to Columbus to take required records course and other training
Reported on installing heater(s) in garage; sought out information & schematics required
State attorney general advises against advertising
Stated that zoning fact sheet intended for the Township website needs to be revised and
brought into compliance with Ohio Revised Code
All: Motion following executive session
Monday, March 24, 2014
Community at the Center 3-25-14
Community at the Center has been moved to Tuesdays. Things get going between 9 and 9:30.
This week, part of the day is going to be Show and Tell, so this is a chance for new people to see what you do to keep you off the streets and out of mischief.
Last week a watercolor painting group came for the first time. Meeting new people was enjoyable, and seeing their beautiful work was inspiring. They are nice, interesting people.
For anyone who has not come to Community at the Center before, the gatherings are in the gymnasium annex of the Mantua Center school building, which is just north of S.R. 82 on Center Road.
Entrance is either through the annex doors on the south side of the building or through the kitchen at the back. For anyone who has a lot to carry, that door is the closer to the parking lot.
We always have potluck lunch, and so far we haven't had all desserts or all chips and dip, so things have worked out.
Come and meet people you didn't know lived here. It's fun.
This week, part of the day is going to be Show and Tell, so this is a chance for new people to see what you do to keep you off the streets and out of mischief.
Last week a watercolor painting group came for the first time. Meeting new people was enjoyable, and seeing their beautiful work was inspiring. They are nice, interesting people.
For anyone who has not come to Community at the Center before, the gatherings are in the gymnasium annex of the Mantua Center school building, which is just north of S.R. 82 on Center Road.
Entrance is either through the annex doors on the south side of the building or through the kitchen at the back. For anyone who has a lot to carry, that door is the closer to the parking lot.
We always have potluck lunch, and so far we haven't had all desserts or all chips and dip, so things have worked out.
Come and meet people you didn't know lived here. It's fun.
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