March 2006
Newton Township Trustees met in regular session on Thursday, March 9, 2006 at 7:00 pm in the meeting room at the Newton Township Fire Department. Those in attendance were; Martha Sterling, White Cottage Community Days representative, Eric Martin of Muskingum County Court, Craig Knox, Larry Geiger and Jeff Swingle of the fire department, Derek J. Dozer, Charles R. Elson, and James R. Smith, township trustees and Bernadine E. Swingle, township fiscal officer.
Meeting was called to order by Dozer at 7:05 pm.
Agenda was approved as presented.
Minutes were corrected to read; Trustee Smith reported a tree on the corner of Main Street and Ransbottom Road in Ironspot is blocking vision of traffic and the resident, one Bill Loterbaugh has agreed to have the tree removed. AEP has agreed to do the removal.
First order of business went to Sterling; she was requesting permission to use the ball field in White Cottage for an Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, April 15, 2006 and also for use of the ball field and vacant fire department building in White Cottage for community days the weekend of September 22, 23, and 24, 2006. Permission was granted for the Easter Egg Hunt and Sterling was advised that sale of the vacant building is pending and the committee would need to contact the new owners at that time. In case the building would not be available, the new fire department building would be made available as much as possible during that time.
Geiger reporting for the fire department; request was made to purchase two new heart monitors for each of the existing medics as the present ones will be obsolete at the end of fiscal year 2006. Regular pricing for these units is $24,099.00 each, Medtronic is giving a special offer at this time to purchase the two at $31,454.72. This includes trade-in of the old units and state bid pricing. Trustees questioned the availability of funds in EMS fund to cover this purchase. This is not possible at this time, but the fire department requested that the purchase be allowed from funds carried over from 2005. This was agreeable by all three trustees.
Knox reporting for the EMS department; new pricing guidelines and statistics reports are now available for the current year, see enclosures.
Trustees questioned as to the status of the first quarter financial report presented earlier this year. The recliners for the day room have been ordered and are still 4 to 5 weeks out. They are not to be paid for until delivered.
Deaver, fire chief reporting; Josh Lasure has quoted pricing for remodeling the day room in the lower level of the fire department. This quote has been withdrawn by Lasure. Swingle Construction has been contacted to submit a bid for this work, it has been done and the price has increased slightly due to matching ceiling tile with what exists in the area at this time... This was approved by all three trustees to proceed as planned previously.
Deaver also reported that Barry Gerrard has been contacted to come in and give suggestions as to landscaping that needs to be done. He will report back on this at a later time.
Deaver requested permission to have the equipment in the weight room checked and needed maintenance performed. At this time, one of the treadmills is not workable as the track has broken. All three trustees agreed this needs to be kept up.
The training program through Genesis has received fair response. First round will be finished the end of March, 2006.
A final work order for the new medic has been completed. Delivery should be approximately July 15, 2006. The older medic is currently out of service.
Bingo has been started on Tuesday night in addition to the Saturday Bingo. Attendance has been fairly good.
A committee has been established to work on some sort of program for the 50th anniversary of Newton Fire Department.
Deaver was questioned as to the status of condemning the “Big Top” building in Avondale. At this time Deaver does not feel he has the freedom to do this. Fiscal Officer was asked to contact Bud Chess as to the legality of such procedure.
Trustees Reporting:
Smith; waiting for a response from AEP to remove power lines from the tree in Ironspot and proceed with the removal of same.
The culvert / sink hole on Linn Drive has been repaired.
The Hina subdivision does not have a STOP sign when coming onto the county road. Smith was advised that the county is responsible for putting these up when a county road is involved.
Georgia Pines subdivision should have had some additional berm applied to the road edges before being turned over to the township. Doug Davis, county engineer has supposedly checked and allowed this addition to the township.
Request from Fiscal Officer as to prior minutes regarding an extension of Shaw Road that crosses Darlington Road and requested by Bill Terry to be opened and maintained by the township. Minutes from August and September, 1999 were presented to cover this situation. It was agreed by the trustees and Mr. Kenily at that time to leave the road at its’ current state.
Elson; Robin Stevens on Greenhouse Road has requested some material be applied to a drop off along the edge of that road. Road employees have been asked to repair this but to date it has not been done. Dozer agreed to speak to them once again.
Linda Dicks of 3395 Stine Road has requested railing be put up on either end of a new culvert that was put in several months ago to replace an existing bridge. Trustees agreed this is not a safe condition and should be done.
Dozer; Presented a copy of a newsletter he has prepared for editing and approval of the board. Hopefully this will be ready for print and mailing at the next meeting.
A resolution for “New Culvert Permit” was presented for consideration of all trustees. This would require any resident to obtain a permit before installing a culvert into a private or commercial driveway approach. The landowner would then purchase and install the culvert which would then be inspected by the township for final approval.
Fiscal Officer reporting:
A resolution was presented for approval to allow proceedings to move ahead to give township employees the option to contribute to deferred compensation as they so desire. This was signed by Dozer, chairperson of the board.
Note was made by Ms. Swingle that the gas bill for the garage is considerably higher than normal, especially with the warm temperatures we have experienced in the last few weeks.
Request of the trustees to finalize the request to close Morrison Road was asked. All three trustees agreed it should remain as it has been in the past and not reported as non-maintained.
One Nancy Thompson, postmaster at East Fultonham has requested a second time to have holes in the post office driveway repaired. Dozer agreed to contact the road men to check this.
Notice was mailed to all three trustees on 02-21-06 re; a meeting of the District 18 Ohio Public Works Integrating Committee to be held on 02-28-2006 to elect 3 township representatives to serve on this board. None of them were able to attend this meeting.
A training schedule for upcoming LTAP meetings was presented for further consideration.
A memo was sent to Elson re; the time and place of the annual JEDD meeting. He was unable to attend due to an emergency situation on the job.
Notice has been received from the Muskingum County Commissioners office that the Georgia Pines Subdivision roads have been duly entrusted to the care of Newton Township.
Notice has been received from the UNIZAN bank that as of April 24, 2006, they will officially be a part of / will be Huntington Bank.
The Muskingum County Township Association spring banquet will be held March 30, 2006 at Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church. Reservations must be in by March 20, 2006.
Clerk inquired of trustees as to the road employees checking the dump trucks each time they leave the garage as was recommended by the Loss Control agency. Also, are the STOP signs being inventoried on a regular basis? Dozer agreed to check with the men on this.
Note was made as to the progress of the 2003 – 2004 audit underway. The final report still has not been received.
Next regular meeting will be held on Thursday, April 20, 2006, at 7:00 PM at the meeting room of the fire department. Notice has been posted on the front door of the fire department.
All bills presented were deemed to be valid expenditures and were to be paid as presented.
Meeting adjourned at 9:20 PM.