Due to the Labor Day holiday, Mt. Gilead Village Council met on Tuesday September 8, 2015 instead of the regular Monday meeting.
Judy Graham, owner of Mike Graham Insurance, relayed to council at the meeting that she is selling the agency. She explained that the new owners will be hosting an open house on Wednesday, December 9 from 6 pm to 8 pm.
Graham asked that the parking lot in front of the office be declared ‘no parking’ on that date from 5 pm to 9 pm because one of the new owners, Dan Downs, has a Reindeer farm and he would like to bring the reindeer to Mt. Gilead for the open house. This will be a free event with refreshments for the community to get to meet the new owners. If approved, (closing the parking lot) she shared that they would like to coordinate with some of the other businesses and make it more of a community event.
Graham also expressed her appreciation, “I want to thank all of you for the hard work that you do for the village. Nobody knows how hard you work but we appreciate how smoothly our village runs. So thank you for that.”
Council member Kay Hines echoed the sentiment, “It is nice to know that we have a clean village… I don’t think we say thank you enough to our employees. Everyone does a good job.”
Fire Chief Greg Young reported that the fire department has been very busy since the last council meeting, “It has been quiet recently but that has now come to an end,” he said. Young reported that the fire department has had 31 responses since the last council meeting. They assisted Iberia and Johnsville once each, eight squad assists, responded to five vehicle accidents, five alarm malfunctions, two gas leaks, one report of wires down, a kitchen fire, one illegal burn, one service run for a kitten stuck in a sewer tile, two CO checks, a tree fire at the State Park, one call for burned food and one field fire.
Committee Reports
Long Range Planning Committee chairman Tim Clapper reported that the committee met and looked at objectives for the income tax money. The objectives were, in no particular order: repair streets, replenish the general fund, fill open positions on the street department, employee raises, purchase more roads salt, and check wage range for the fiscal officer position.
Village Administrator Dan Rogers shared that the CDBG application for the restroom at Ft. Gilead was approved. He will learn if the Nature Works Grant is approved or not sometime in October. The Nature Works Grant would be for the new playground equipment at ft. Gilead.
Rogers reported that the street department has been working on paving.
He expressed to council that they will need to set aside money overt he next 5 to 6 years to replace the main roof of the firehouse. “It’s a rubber roof and there are splits in seems. The roofing company says we could get 10 more years if we do repairs.” Rogers is getting an estimate on the cost of the repairs.
He noted that the water plant is, “In maintenance mode preparing for winter.”
Mayor Mike Porter reported that the Mt. Gilead Village Tree Board has been discussing an arboretum for several years. They will be making an official announcement of an arboretum at the Headwaters on Sept 23 at 8:20 am which is the beginning of fall equinox. They will start with existing trails naming some of the trees that are there and will gradually expand over the years
In other business:
Village Clerk Sue merman reported that she was unable to bring Resolution 9-8-15 to council for a vote as the village did not receive the needed information from the county auditor as requested. This resolution will need to be vote done at next council meeting. Merman stressed that they would need a five council members as it would need to be passed as an emergency.
Council approved: 9-8-15A a resolution authorizing the clerk of the village of Mount Gilead Ohio to submit certain charges incurred by property owners to the Morrow County Auditor for the purpose of assessing outstanding balance of real estate taxes.
The next Mt. Gilead Village Council meeting is Monday, September 21, 2015 at 7:00 pm.
Reach Donna Carver at 419-946-3010, ext. 1804 or on twitter @MorrCoSentinel.
