November 2024
NEWTON TOWNSHIP MINUTES 11-12-2024
Newton Township Trustees met in regular session on Tuesday, November 12, 2024. Those in attendance were Craig Knox, Fire Chief; Larken Slack, Derek Dozer and Randy Elson; Township Trustees and Paula Frank, Fiscal Officer. Also in attendance were Township residents: Brandon Stackhouse, Renee Stackhouse, Kent Cornett, Shane Stephenson, and Sam Lantz.
Meeting was called to order by Trustee Slack at 6:00 pm.
Pledge to the flag was led by Larken Slack.
Agenda: approved.
Minutes: approved.
Public Participation: Kent Cornett suggested adding more guardrails along Foxfire since there have been several cars in the ditches lately.
Fire Department Business: 123 calls in Oct – 89 in Muskingum County and 34 in Perry County. The total for the year is 1,318. They are 256 ahead of 2023.
There were 8 uncovered 12-hour shifts, 5 were due to call-offs.
The house at 3045 Maysville Pike has been repaired.
An EMT-basic class has begun. They received the Energy Cooperative grant for rope rescue equipment for $8,417.20 and another grant from the Straker Foundation. They received $16,000.00 for water rescue equipment – 6 mustang suits, and gloves and helmets, personal flotation devices and a banana boat. They are working on the annual MARCS grant. There are 4 mobile radios that will not be compliant so they will need replaced. They hope to get the grant for that. The radios are $3,000 - $5,000 per radio.
Craig asked Jason if he has fixed the drain in the upper lot. He would like that unclogged before spring.
There are 3 candidates going through hiring processes. Four letters have been sent to inactive members. Two have responded and one is coming back to active status. That is Robbie Chambers and Courtney Grant has not reached a decision yet. Shane Patterson and Brian Bott have not responded yet if they wish to remain active on the department. Shane Patterson asked Craig why he did not receive the bonus check and he was told he needed to work after the pandemic and Shane has not worked for almost 12 months. Chad Hina has verbally given his resignation and will be submitting a written resignation soon.
Fire Levy – they can add it to the May ballot and Craig has reached out to the Auditor’s office to get the numbers he needs. They are not able to get him the numbers yet based on the increased valuations because they have not received the approval from the State. He thinks we need to have resolutions to the board of elections the first part of February. He thinks with the new valuations, they may not need to 3 plus 2 mils. Craig doesn’t want to make a decision on the millage to request until he knows what the revenue will be based on the new values.. He says they can still run it as a renewal but then they are in a five-year cycle of not being able to collect more revenue when property values increase. It only failed by 270 votes and he feels good about that. Hopefully by the December meeting the Auditor’s office will have the valuations firmed up.
AED’s for the building – Craig has asked Jake to contact vendors to get pricing. He thinks they still have cabinets so they won’t need new ones. He thinks one in the gym and one on the upper level would be good since the building is used by so many residents.
Assistant Chief: none.
Road Report:
· Hitch broke on the dump truck. The larger trailer weighs more so that stressed it.
· New spreader box control on the 550.
· Ditched along Slack and widened it up to the top of the first hill.
· They worked on Butcherknife today.
· Checked on Workman per Derek’s text from Barnes.
· They plan to junk the brine truck so Jason asked about getting the title. Miller said they would give $1200 for it. Ronnie Hall was only willing to give $700.
Old Business: Derek brought up Boyd’s sanitation. He thinks we need to send him a letter thanking him for what he has done but it is still not enough. Need to give him a date to have that completed by.
The board discussed the Grant Cliff Road paving invoices that Springfield Twp. The invoice for $36,241.50 is the amount that will be paid to Springfield by Newton – not the $14,520.60 as that appears to be South Zanesville’s portion. Derek will follow up Dale Phillips to see if he agrees with that amount, before Newton pays anything.
The solar powered stop signs on Thompson Run have died so Jason has ordered new batteries for them.
New Business: Sam Lantz has passed his CDL test effective November 1st.
Randy said that Terry has finished mowing the cemeteries for the year.
Larken said the water department is making progress on Shaw. He has called Shelly Company and scheduled for next Spring to pave Shaw.
Larken would like to chip seal Bush, Porter Run and Butcherknife next year. He spoke with 20/20 and they do local work prior to June and then go out of town for the larger projects. He would like to widen Butcherknife but needs to remove some trees off of some properties. Larken will reach out to those landowners and discuss.
Larken also talked about paving plans for next year so roads could be prepped far enough in advance so it they weren’t crunched on time.
Trustees Reports:
Elson—none.
Dozer—none.
Slack— none.
Fiscal Officer Report:
· Distributed Grassroots Clippings
· Asked trustees and Jason to sign Aetna documents as the old signature pages were too far back-dated for Mr. Montgomery to submit.
· Received Donald Jones’ letter back un-signed, for nuisance abatement.
· Lexipol policies / employee manual.
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, December 10, 2024 at 6:00 pm.
Meeting adjourned at 7:22 p.m.
Newton Township has made every effort to ensure all the information listed on this website is accurate and up to date. This information can and may change without notice. Meeting overviews are meant to serve as short informational updates on township business. We can not be responsible for any inaccurate or omitted information.