Village Council Meets

The January 15th village council meeting was held in council chambers at 5:30 p.m. and began with prayer led by Pastor Ralph Mineo of St Luke’s Lutheran Church. All council members except Aaron Patterson, who was excused, were present for the meeting.

During public participation, the first speaker was the Village council president from Walbridge who wanted to communicate with whoever might have time available, about the village’s golf cart ordinance. They are looking to mimic our North Baltimore ordinance in Walbridge and wanted to chat about how effective it is. Police Chief Lafferty and Councilman Ty Carles both agreed to speak with Mr. Joe Weissenberger after the meeting.

Also present were two representatives of Intech IT Solutions who gave a presentation on the security cameras for both The Village Park and at the Village Hall. The cameras at the council chambers will be hardwired and the cameras placed at the village park will be wireless and will be ready to go soon. A few trees need to be trimmed to improve the sight line.

Interim finance officer Tony Swartz gave an update of the finances. He has recapped the income tax from 2018 and found a 13% increase of the collection over 2017. It appears that the general fund is up about $100,000 over the previous year also.

The village administrator Michael Brillhart presented a resolution adopting a five-year capital improvement program which included policies and procedures for capital expenditures for fiscal years 2019 through 2023.

Council also gave its first reading to an ordinance authorizing The village administrator to enter an agreement with Reveille Planning an Economic Development for the purpose of providing CRP (community redevelopment area) and jobs grant program development planning services.

Janet Goldner presented her fourth state of the village address since she became mayor. She reported that North Baltimore this year is 143 years old, has a population of 3529, and the median age of our citizens is 35.1 years old.

The Public Works standing committee again led a discussion of sidewalks in the village and will continue to investigate the current ordinance and possible options for the village

Under public utilities, a water study was approved by council to take a look at the outside bulk user rates and see if those need to be updated.

The mayor’s state of the village address can be found elsewhere on the NBXpress.