by Sue Miklovic
The Village council met last Tuesday, December 4 in the Council Chambers, with Council President Art Patterson and Member Aaron Patterson both absent .
Prior to the beginning of the meeting, Pastor Duane Weaver of Church of the Good Shepherd offered a brief meditation and prayer.
Some of the highlights/topics from the meeting included:
% Gave permission for the North Baltimore High School Choir members to sing Christmas Carols on Main Street in front of the Village Hall on December 17, beginning at 7:00pm. The public has been invited to join the students, as well as students from Elmwood and Van Buren. There will be hot chocolate served.
% Allowing the EMS Chief to purchase a Lucas device for the department, not to exceed $4300.00 with the balance to be paid with grant dollars.
% Agreed to pay Brian Roberts,Utility Director, $7200 for unused vacation time he has accumulated. The EPA requires someone with his level of certification to be present at all times, and none of the current employees have attained that level of training/certification yet. In order for Roberts to use the vacation time he has earned, the village would have to hire a temporary qualified person, which would be extremely expensive for the village. The 200 hours he is being paid for will help keep him below the maximum allowable carry-over number of hours. The Village had been talking about the best solution to this situation for several months before taking this action.
% Hired two dispatchers, Krista Noykos and Carol Davis, effective December 5, 2018.
% Agreed to vacate a portion of the north end of Central Avenue for Roll Tite to expand parking at their facility on Elm Street.
% Changed the first meeting of January 2019 from January 1st to January 2nd.
% Read a resolution authorizing the village to adopt the federally approved Wood County Hazard Mitigation plan.
% Read ordinances including contracting with a company for required water meter maintenance equipment, setting the Annual Appropriations for expenses, and giving a third reading to ordinance agreeing to an economic development contract with Black Swamp Locations Strategies.
% Agreed to an updated Brush Policy for the village. The new rules will be in effect in January for 2019, and will be followed for the entire year, and revisited. (Editors note: We will be posting the full policy, with explanations of the changes and updated guidelines, as soon as they are available to us for publication)
The meeting disbanded in order to go into Executive session. After regrouping no action was taken, and the meeting was adjourned.
Since last Tuesday, the Mayor has announced the Village has hired a new Village Administrator. A separate story is published regarding this action.
