January 2023
NEWTON TOWNSHIP MINUTES 01-10-2023
Newton Township Trustees met in regular session on Tuesday, January 10, 2023. Those in attendance were Craig Knox, Fire Chief, Jake Lutz, Assistant Fire Chief; Larken Slack, Derek Dozer and Randy Elson; Township Trustees and Paula Frank, Fiscal Officer. Also, in attendance were, township residents: Shane Stephenson, David Gilver, Jan Dykes, Jeff Phillips, Bernadine Swingle, Vicki McConnell, Bob Mock, Kent Cornett, Jim Kwiatkowski, Terry Havens, Brandon Stackhouse, and Renee Stackhouse.
Meeting was called to order by Trustee Dozer at 6:00 pm.
Pledge to the flag was led by Derek Dozer.
Agenda: approved.
Minutes: Derek asked if the June 13th meeting date could be changed to Thursday the 15th – for the monthly meeting. Everyone agreed that would be fine.
Public Participation: Mr. Gilver is concerned with the vehicles that are being moved in on the Temple property on Moxahala Park Road. Dozer stated that the township is very limited on what can be done about it. Resident is distraught over the loss of his home value due to the mess. Discussion continued about zoning and that it failed the last time it was on the ballot. The cars in question do not fall under the “junk” qualification since they have engines, transmissions and tires.
Mrs. McConnell – Shaw Road was on the list to be paved last year and it was not. There are drop offs and she asking for there to be some patching to be done along the edge of the road. Larken let her know that they did not pave it because they wanted to widen it prior to paving.
Mrs. Swingle – Opera Road – Per Derek, the road is not vacated but could be brought back up to standards. The trustees do not want to bring it back up to standards. The residents that are land locked want to access their property off of Slack.
Mr. Jim Kwiatkowski owns the property at the Opera and Slack is asking why the township maintains his “driveway”. Jason let him know that the previous owners expected the township to mow and plow that driveway since it was considered a road. Derek explained how the township road maintenance works and how the township gets roads added to their inventory. The landowner said that in order to access the land locked property they have to drive off the road and onto his property. There are trees and trash in the road right of way currently. Derek said he would call the County Engineer to see how far it is technically opened. Landowner has also stated that he does not want to be liable for any injury to a person accessing the property. The trustees stated that with the conversation taking place at this meeting, that will not be an issue.
Mr. Phillips is the owner of the land locked property and his realtor spoke to the board about the lack of right of way to the property. The buyer does not want a road. He just wants to be able to walk up to the property and access it. He does not want to drive a vehicle to it.
Mr. Mock is asking about the status of the stop sign at Foxfire and Thompson Run Road. He says it doesn’t matter what they do, people will not stop. He does think maybe the flashing “stop ahead” sign may help. Jason just got pricing for the two flashing signs and it was $4,000.00. The trustees said they will try it and hopefully nobody will vandalize the signs.
Fire Department Business: There were 98 dispatched calls in December. 81 of those calls were in Muskingum County and 17 in Perry County. Total runs for year were 1331. The training division is teaching FF 1 course at Foxfire through a grant with the Ohio Department of Education. An instructor course started tonight here at the department.
The ladder parts have all arrived so it should be repaired by early February.
Craig presented the contract for the Assistance to Firefighter Grant for the next round. The fee is $500.00 and the successful bonus award of 7% of the total amount of federal funding received. He also presented a resolution to enter the contract with the grant writing company. The total of the application would not exceed $500. They are trying to obtain $62,000 from this grant for fire hose, nozzles, appliances to outfit trucks with brand new equipment for fire suppression.
Equipment that was awarded off the BWC grant has been ordered and should be here in April.
There was one 12-hour shift out of 186 possible shifts that went uncovered in December.
Dozer asked what the feedback was on the raises and Craig said they were appreciated.
Banquet is January 21st – Craig asked if any of the trustees would be in attendance.
Assistant Chief: none.
Road Report: Discussion about the No Parking signs on Mona Drive. Craig said once signs are up, then the Sheriff’s office can tow anyone parked there.
A-Z is meeting with Jason next Tuesday about the trees that the township needs taken down. Jason said he would cut the trees up, he just needs A-Z to take them down.
Jason asked if he could order a new belt for his dump truck. The current one is wearing down.
He is cleaning ditches out.
Old Business:
New Business:
Trustees Reports:
Elson—none.
Dozer— none.
Slack—none.
Fiscal Officer Report:
· Distributed Grassroots Clippings
· Per Mark Zanghi, the board may adopt a policy to pay out, at the end of the year, any un-used vacation time.
· A township may limit parking on township roads that are located outside a municipal corporation. The trustees will need to pass a resolution prohibiting parking in the affected areas – Per Mark Zanghi.
· Mileage certification presented for signature from the Muskingum County Engineer’s office.
Trustee Slack made a motion to pay bills. Trustee Dozer seconded the motion. Motion carried.
All bills presented were deemed to be valid expenditures and were to be paid as presented.
Next regular meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 6:00 pm
Meeting adjourned at 7:31 pm.
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