July 2021
NEWTON TOWNSHIP MINUTES 7-13-2021
Newton Township Trustees met in regular session on Tuesday, July 13, 2021. Those in attendance were Craig Knox, Fire Chief; James R. Smith, Derek Dozer and Randy Elson; Township Trustees and Paula Frank, Fiscal Officer. Also in attendance were: Pat Kelly; Kelly Architectural Services, Jerry Stump, Franz Frueh, and Brandon Stackhouse.
Meeting was called to order by Trustee Dozer at 6:02 pm.
Pledge to the flag was led by Derek Dozer.
Agenda approved.
Minutes approved.
Public Participation: Bid Opening – Franz Frueh - $82,228.00 and G and M Construction is at $67,800.00. Township doing the hauling and demolition and get their own stone. Pending review - but appears that G and M is the low bidder. Pat Kelly will get with Craig on scheduling so the whole pad isn’t torn up at once. The fire trucks will be the only ones that will really be affected during the demo. The medics may still be able to pull out around without causing any issues.
Jerry Stump – ROW / easement – he does not believe the ROW needs to be 50’ on his property. He would accept a 20’ row / easement. Mr. Dozer’s opinion is 25’ or 30’ but 20 isn’t quite enough. Mr. Stump agreed to 25’ feet. Discussion followed about odd numbered row’s not being a “thing” and that 30’ would be fair. Mr. Stump said the county was going to close the part of the road over the bank. He agreed to the 30’ right of way / easement.
Fire Department Business:
Chief Knox— Boat is out of service – has a hole in it. The parts that have been replaced in the past are coming apart again. The adhesive is letting go where the seams overlap so they are working with the vendor to get those parts sent back and repaired. The recliners were delivered last week. The association paid for their half of those. Craig stated that he would get the FO the bill so the total could be paid. Paumier has contacted Craig about billing – our rates have not increased for quite a while. Our mileage is $20 / mile, a BLS billing rate is $550, ALS Type 1 is $700 and ALS Type 2 is $850. Paumier recommends that we raise our rates to $21 for mileage, $570 for BLS, $728 for ALS Type 1 and $885 For ALS Type 2. That will put us in the Medicare reimbursement margins.
Mr. Dozer made a motion to raise the rates, Mr. Smith 2nd – motion carried.
FEMA Grant – FEMA GO has had technical issues since they issued their first round of updates on June 11th. Nothing new has come out from them since then. He anticipates hearing more this coming Friday. FF II course is wrapping up and a house has been donated on Lambert Road. The class has used it for all sorts of training and will burn it around the beginning of August.
The training division borrowed South Zanesville’s Hurst tool and one of the blades was broken during the class. The cost to repair the tool is $ 1713.32 and Craig had asked that the FO contact Kris Kirby about Newton paying the deductible and have them turn it in on their insurance. South Zanesville does not want to turn in a claim so he is asking if it was okay for us to just pay the full amount to repair the tool. Mr. Dozer motions that it was fine for us to just pay for the repair. The board all agreed to pay the repair.
FDIC is going to taking place 8/1 through 8/7. Members attending are: Craig Knox, Larry Geiger, Todd Hensley, and possibly Jeffrey Cohen, Tyler Stutes and Aaron Hammers. 2020 was cancelled and 2021 got postponed until August.
Dozer asked to go into executive session for a few minutes at 6:29 pm. Executive session ended at 6:32 pm.
Craig contacted Debbie Nye and Tina Huebner at the Auditor’s office regarding the levy. He just wanted to make sure that he was invited to attend the meeting that the board has with their office. Derek agreed he should come because we may not have answers to their questions.
Assistant Chief—none.
Road Report – Stop sign came in – new home owners assured him that this one would not get shot – Leffler and Swackhammer intersection. It weighs a ton and he was unable to install it and so he installed a regular sign. Thompson got ditched today and will need bermed. Foxfire has a culvert that will be fixed on Thursday. Fultonham streets are paved, Sheila is done and appears they are going to do Nutter tomorrow.
Old Business – Cracked fill in the subdivisions – Jason got an estimate. It would be $10,000 – for Thorn, Lakewood, and Greenhouse. Moxadarla is cracking right down the middle.
Mr. Bolyard – Derek will attempt to make contact with him again. He stopped by his house to talk to him but Mr. Bolyard did not answer the door.
New Business – Discussion continued regarding the Maysville Water Department and their lack of notifying the township when they are going to cut into our roads to make waterline repairs. Sunset Drive – they have cut a huge chunk out for water repairs and there is also one on Dona Drive that they have cut into. Jason has talked to Beth from Maysville Water and she assured him that they will contact him every time they cut our road in the future so we are aware of those repairs. Mr. Elson brought up a place on Greenhouse, near Rural King, that water repairs had been made. Water runs out all the time and the ditches are full. It ices in the winter time as well. Maysville says it is not their water line. Derek is going to call Maysville Water.
Trustees Reports:
Smith—
Dozer—
Elson—
Fiscal Officer Report:
· Distributed Grassroots Clippings
· The audit is still in process and is supposed to be completed by the end of July.
· Resolution 06-2021 – Adopting the 2022 Alternative Tax Budget.
· ARP Federal Funds – Fiscal Officer gave basic information of the new funding and what its uses are. Asked the trustees to please do some research as well to determine if the township wants to request to receive the grant money which is estimated to be around $545,000. Available uses are as follows:
o To respond to the public health emergency or its negative economic impact. Including assistance to households, small business, non-profits or aid in impacted industries such as tourism, travel and hospitatlity.
o To provide premium pay to essential employees or grants to provide premium pay (cannot exceed $13 additional per hour or $25,000 per worker and cannot exceed certain local averages, unless specifically justified).
o To provide government services affected by revenue reduction due to the public health emergency relative to revenues collected in the most recent full fiscal year prior to the emergency.
o Make necessary investments in water, sewer or broadband infrastructure.
§ Craig brought up the possibility of using this money to purchase a new medic. There is also a heart monitor that is no longer working. Stryker is no longer servicing the heart monitors. So possibly we could use the money for that as well. That is $22,000. The medic would be around $350,000. That would bring us down to only one Medic for the time while the new one is being built. If not allowed – maybe extend the water lines out in the community. Craig also wondered about the premium pay option for first responders. Or even extending a grant to Maysville Water so they could extend their lines and supply hydrants.
· Mr. Stackhouse asked if the ARP funds could be used to help Lake Isabella but the board agreed that they would fall under the small business funding. They closed down and didn’t have expenses to match their lack of revenue.
· Hartley Contract – do we want to continue with their service? Yes – FO will sign the contract and return it to Hartley’s.
· Madison Township mutual aid agreement – to be signed and returned to Mr. White.
· Letter from Englefield Oil noting another price increase.
· The Muskingum County Board of Elections has moved the polling location for this fall from the Fire Department to the Maysville campus.
· Letter from Andy Roberts regarding Brownfield & Slum & Blight Remediation – the board could not come up with any EAP dump zones that has vacant property. They discussed Robinson Ransbottom but then decided not to pursue it.
Trustee Elson made a motion to pay bills. Trustee Dozer seconded the motion.
All bills presented were deemed to be valid expenditures and were to be paid as presented.
Next regular meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 10, 2021 at 6:00 pm.
Meeting adjourned at 7:35 p.m.
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