Village of North Fairfield

Regular Meeting

April 8 th , 2013

The Village of North Fairfield Council held a Regular Council Meeting on Monday, April 8th, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. at 3 East Main Street, North Fairfield, Ohio. Mayor, Dan Traxler called the meeting to order with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silent prayer.

Roll Call: Mrs. Mary Millis, present; Mrs. Amy Gahring, present; Mr. John Whitright, present; Mr. Joshua Radcliffe, tardy - present; Sharleen Coy, present; Mrs. Terry Jones, excused; Village Administrator, Mr. Carl Essex, present; Village Solicitor, Vickie Ruffing, present; Mayor Dan Traxler, present; Fiscal Officer, Mrs. Michelle Whitright, present ; Megan Moore, present.

Visitors in Attendance: Craig Shoup – no report

Packet for this meeting that include the minutes from the March meetings were e-mail to council’s new Village e- mail accounts. Mrs. Mary Millis made a motion that it be required that hard copies of the minutes are printed and waiting for council at the meetings in the future. Mrs. Amy Gahring seconded the motion. Role Call: Mary Millis, aye; Amy Gahring, aye; John Whitright, no; Sharleen Coy, aye. Motion carried

Minutes of previous meeting: Council is presented with the minutes of the March 11th, 2013 meeting. Mr. John Whitright made a motion to accept the minutes as written. Mrs. Mary Millis seconded the motion. Role Call: Mary Millis, aye; Amy Gahring, aye; John Whitright, aye; Sharleen Coy, aye; motion carried. Minutes from the March 11th, 2013 meeting accepted as written.

Josh Radcliffe in at 7:08.

Council is presented with the minutes of the March 25th, 2013 meeting. Mr. John Whitright made a motion to accept the minutes as written. Mrs. Sharleen Coy seconded the motion. Role Call: Mary Millis, aye; Amy Gahring, aye; John Whitright, aye; Sharleen Coy, aye; Josh Radcliffe, aye. Motion carried, minutes from the March 25th, 2013 meeting accepted as written.

Financial Statement: Council is presented with the financial statement of March 31st, 2013. Mrs. Amy Gahring made a motion to accept the financial statement. Mrs. Mary Millis seconded the motion. Role call vote: Mary Millis, aye; Amy Gahring, aye; John Whitright, aye; Sharleen Coy, aye; Josh Radcliffe, aye. Motion carried; March 31st, 2013 financial statement accepted a presented.

Disbursements: Council members are presented with a list of the disbursements dated April 8th, 2013 for review. Mr. John Whitright made a motion to approve the disbursements. Mr. Josh Radcliffe seconded the motion. Role call vote: Mary Millis, aye; John Whitright, aye; Sharleen Coy, aye; Amy Gahring, aye; Josh Radcliffe, aye. Motion carried, disbursements dated April 8th, 2013 approved as presented.

Mayor’s Report: Mayor Traxler distributed his Mayor’s report to Council and reported on what it included. (See attached Mayor’s report)

Mayor Traxler reported that he met with Poggemeyer and it “went well”. He believes that they will be able to assist the Village in the future with our water possibilities. They are going to a “scope” for the Village which will outline possible projects/solutions, possible timeline and possible funding. They will do this scope at no charge to the Village. Dan has copies of the study they did for the Village some years ago that can be reviewed.

The Easter egg hunt went very well with over 70 kids participating.

1 Dan, Carl and Vickie are still working on the annexation of the properties on Mill Street. The “boy scout” property is being added to the annexation since the Village owns the park/property.

Fitchville Township is selling their municipal plow truck which is a 2000 Chevy 4x4. They are taking sealed bids till sometime in May. It is both the truck and plow and has 48,000 miles on it. Dan was told by one of the trustees that the Village is welcome to test drive it. Carl and Dan have discussed the truck and believe that because it would be an agreement between two municipalities there may be a bit more leeway in acquiring it. They didn’t give Dan a price so he and Carl will do some research to make an offer, he believes the Village could acquire it for under $5,000.00. Dan and Carl will continue to work on the matter.

The ordinance for the FEMA application has been completed. Vickie explained that FEMA sent the ordinance to the Village with the proper terminology as they need it to be, the only changes/additions she made was to add the wording necessary to declare an emergency for the immediate passage, enter an ordinance number, date and signature spaces. She stated that the agency has it written up as they need it to be so the Village is better off not making any changes to the content of the document. Council discussed the entire FEMA application project and what has been required and what will have to be renewed annually once the Village is a member again.

Legislation: Ordinance: 2013-O-05 Special Purpose Flood Damage Reduction Ordinance #2013-O-05 and Declaring an Emergency Village of North Fairfield, Ohio

Mr. Josh Radcliffe made a motion to suspend the rules. Mrs. Mary Millis seconded the motion. Role Call: Mary Millis, aye; Amy Gahring, aye; John Whitright, aye; Sharleen Coy, aye; Josh Radcliffe, aye. Motion carried, rules are suspended.

Mr. John Whitright made a motion on the advice of Village Solicitor, Vickie Ruffing to accept Ordinance 2013-O-05 and declare an emergency. Mr. Josh Radcliffe seconded the motion. Role Call: Mary Millis, aye; Amy Gahring, aye; John Whitright, aye; Sharleen Coy, aye; Josh Radcliffe, aye. Motion carried Ordinance 2013-O-05 has been adopted. Mayor Traxler stated that the Ordinance will be sent in to ODNR which should be the final step in the FEMA application so the process should proceed quickly from this point forward.

Dan reported that he sent Carol Knapp another e-mail checking on the progress of the grant and playground paperwork that she has been working on for the Village.

The first set of documents have been sent out to Council by e-mail but apparently came into everyone’s “spam” folder but the issue seems to have been cleared up at this time.

Fiscal Officer's Report: Michelle reported to Council that she received notice from the IRS regarding the Village’s 941 taxes which are federal taxes for employers stating that the Village owes $418. 97 from 4th quarter of 2012. She wants to take some time to look into the matter because she believes that the information may be incorrect. The Village’s UAN system calculates the payments and creates the vouchers for the amounts to be paid, she does not calculate or change these figures. But if the Village does have to pay the money it will have to be done before the next Council meeting so she is requesting approval from Council to pay the monies if it turns out that it is owed. Mrs. Mary Millis made a motion to pay the taxes if necessary. Mr. Josh Radcliffe seconded the motion. Role Call: Mary Millis, aye; Amy Gahring, aye; John Whitright, aye; Sharleen Coy, aye; Josh Radcliffe, aye. Motion carried, Michelle will pay the $418.97 by the due date of April 29th if the matter hasn’t been worked out by that time.

Administrator's Report: Brush pickup will begin soon as weather permits. The policy outlines that it will be done on the last Saturday of the month, Council would like it to be done prior to the Community Garage Sales.

Carl will look into ordering more whole-house water filter systems for the Village to distribute to residents. Michelle gave him the information on the systems that the Village did have on hand for residents so he can use the information to find something compatible with the same filter refills.

2 Solicitor’s Report: Vickie reported that she has heard from the Department of Taxation regarding the Village’s application to exempt the Lion’s Club/”Boy Scout Park” property. They had questions regarding the property, (i.e. – what was the building going to be used for? Do we expect to remove the building? What activities/plans does the Village have for the property) Vickie consulted with Dan and Michelle and responded to the questions. She will report back to Council when she receives any further information on the matter.

Report of Council Committees:

Finance/Audit Committee: Council President, Josh Radcliffe signed the Cash Summary by Fund report. Council members signed a copy of the current Appropriations Status by Fund Report

Street Committee: Chairperson, John Whitright reported that some potholes have been patched in the Village and there are still some that need repaired. He also wanted to verify that the Village was still planning on doing its annual spring trash pickup which is generally held the Wednesday following the community garage sale which would make it May 8th this year. It was confirmed that the pickup will be held, Michelle will contact Armatrout to make sure it’s set up.

Recreation Committee: A Peach Festival Meeting was held, this year’s festival will be held July 19th & 20th. The committee is getting things in order for the high school bands to perform. The committee meetings will be held every 2 weeks at 6:00 p.m. but there is some confusion regarding if they decided on Wednesdays or Thursdays. Dan suggested that the Recreation Committee and Peach Festival Commission combine their meetings. He also reported that he is looking into purchasing a sound system for the Peach Festival as opposed to paying roughly $400 a year rental for the unit; he has found some online to purchase for about that same amount. The matter was briefly discussed.

Buildings & Grounds Committee: Reminder per chairperson John Whitright: April 27th park clean up weather permitting. Also, he would like to request that the Village considering purchasing a measuring wheel for Megan Moore, Zoning Administrator to use when measuring property for permit applications.

John doesn’t know at this time what was found during the walk through at the park on North Main Street. He and Josh were both unable to go on the scheduled day and have not spoken with Terry Jones who did go down to learn what was discovered.

Fireboard Committee: Fireboard Representative, Josh Radcliffe reported on the Fireboard meeting of March 26th: Greg Sherck is the new Fireboard member. Gordon Oney was nominated to be an alternate but declined at this time due to prior commitments that caused a scheduling conflict.

Ed Eden reported that 3 of the 4 issues that were holding up the FEMA grant have been cleared up which leaves one remaining problem and according to Ed the final approval should come in the next couple of weeks.

Ed reported that they are looking into replacing the On Call System with an in-truck cell phone or an I-Pad to send messages from the field to contact groups. The One Call System went up from $100 to $350 annually and he said the process for getting messages out is very time consuming. They are looking to adding another phone to someone’s cell phone account which would only be $10.00 a month and then reimburse the person. At this time it is just something that they are looking into.

May 4th the department will hold a chicken b-b-que in conjunction with the community garage sales.

Upcoming training includes the annual training in Bowling Green; Norwalk Fire Dept will be having a controlled burn on Zenobia Road to which Fairfield will provide a tanker, equipment and men and the FOOLS is sponsoring a training session at the HC Fairgrounds April 19th & 20th.

The next Fireboard meeting will be held on April 23rd at 7:00

Planning Commission: John reported that he would like to schedule a planning commission meeting once Dan received the information he talked about from Poggemeyer to go over the information.

3 Records Committee: Meeting scheduled April 20th at noon. John reported that he will not be able to attend the meeting and it is believed that Terry will not be there and Michelle may not be there. It was decided that as long as two people are available to attend, they should go ahead and have the meeting since it has been rescheduled a couple times now due to members being unable to attend.

Historical Association: No report

Tree Commission: Joint clean up with Buildings & Grounds on April 27th at the park on North Main Street.

Special Issues: Sharleen Coy asked if the Village has heard from CG. Vickie reported that she has not been able to send the final copy of the proposed permit due to computer issues this past week in her office. She is hoping to get it sent out in the next couple of days. Once CG approves the permit it will come back in front of Council for final review and approval. Vickie believes that the most recent changes to the permit should finalize it.

Josh Radcliffe reported that he has been approached by members of the community asking why Council and Administration has not held a meeting with members of the community to let them know where things currently stand with the natural gas process. Council and Administration discussed a possible meeting, but decided against it at this time as they really don’t have concrete information to pass on to residents. Council and Administration discussed the natural gas matter at length. Carl reported that they are using pink spray paint to mark out the Village’s drainage lines and blue for the water lines to get lines marked out to start preparing for the natural gas lines.

Adjournment: Mr. John Whitright made a motion for adjournment. Mr. Josh Radcliffe seconded the motion. Council voted, all ayes, motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 8:00 p.m.

Reference/mw: for the complete recording of this meeting refer to audiocassette dated April 8th, 2013.

Approved and adopted by the Council of the Village of North Fairfield ______, 2013.

______Dan Traxler, Mayor Michelle Whitright, Fiscal Officer

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