Proposed junkyard ongoing concern at comissioners meeting

By Tay­lor Kaser -

Dis­cus­sion regard­ing wor­ries about a con­di­tional use per­mit appli­ca­tion for Cen­tral Ohio Metal Exchange was revis­ited at the com­mis­sion­ers’ Sep­tem­ber 19 reg­u­lar meet­ing. The busi­ness, located off of Tide­wa­ter Rd. has been described as a junk yard by nearby neighbors.

In addi­tion to his issues con­cern­ing the junk­yard itself, res­i­dent Darin Seiber cited a col­lapsed struc­ture on the same prop­erty as a poten­tial prob­lem. He stated that the struc­ture has been down since a snow­storm in 2008, and itself dates back to 1953, and Seiber believes it may con­tain asbestos.

“I’ve chased chil­dren off of that the struc­ture from my prop­erty,” said Seiber. He explained that the build­ing could pose a seri­ous health threat if does con­tain asbestos.

“I have filed a nui­sance com­plaint on that prop­erty through the Town­ship Trustees, Health Depart­ment, and the Zon­ing Office,” said Seiber, who has also con­tacted the EPA regard­ing the pos­si­ble asbestos.

Com­mis­sioner Tom Whis­ton com­mu­ni­cated that in his talks with the Canaan Twp. Trustees, he’s learned that they are draft­ing a let­ter to be sent to the prop­erty owner about the problem.

“We talked to the Town­ship Trustees and they assured us that they would be pro­ceed­ing,” said Jack­son, “We met with the Pros­e­cut­ing Attor­ney How­land and he assured us that they’re pro­ceed­ing to do every­thing legally that they’re capa­ble of doing.”

Regard­ing the allowance of the per­mit, Jack­son said, ” I haven’t heard any­thing back yet from the BZA, they were going to make an inspec­tion of the prop­erty to make a deter­mi­na­tion of whether or not they were going to issue a per­mit.” He noted that he has requested the record­ing from the lat­est Board of Zon­ing Appeals where the request was being discussed.

“I have not exag­ger­ated or sen­sa­tion­al­ized any part of my side of this issue, I have valid grounds for appeal. And if the deci­sion goes in the favor of Cen­tral Ohio Metal Exchange, I will be fil­ing the appeal. I’m very con­fi­dent that I will end up win­ning that appeal.” said Seiben.

Also in the meet­ing, Whis­ton was approved to sign a change order regard­ing the air­port reha­bil­i­ta­tion project for the run­way and taxi­way. The com­ple­tion date of the project, per the con­struc­tion con­tract with Kokos­ing Con­struc­tion, Inc., is being extended.

The com­ple­tion date for the asphalt sur­face course, top­soil, seed­ing and mulching, and tem­po­rary mark­ing on the run­way, taxi­way, and road will be August 30, 2012. Per­ma­nent run­way and taxi­way mark­ing will be fin­ished on Octo­ber 12, 2012. The time exten­sion will allow the required 28 day wait time for run­way and taxi­way marking.

Grant monies for the Vic­tim Wit­ness Pro­gram was approved for appropriation.

Unap­pro­pri­ated monies were also appro­pri­ated to cover Pub­lic Assis­tance Util­i­ties and a trans­fer of funds was approved for Job & Fam­ily Services.

Mor­row County Engi­neer Randy Bush was appointed to rep­re­sent the Mor­row County High­way Depart­ment regard­ing a FEMA appli­ca­tion for reim­burse­ment funds for the dam­ages caused by the June 2012 windstorm.

A Job & Com­merce agree­ment between the com­mis­sion­ers, the State of Ohio, and the Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion was approved. The com­mis­sion­ers will receive fund­ing in sup­port of the Marengo Fab­ri­cated Steel Expan­sion Project. The total cost of the project is esti­mated at $240,000. Con­struc­tion costs eli­gi­ble will be con­nected with improve­ments and con­struc­tion on Co. Rd. 26.

County res­i­dent Jim Beurline was rec­og­nized by the com­mis­sion­ers at their Sep­tem­ber 24 meet­ing. Beurlein was recently inducted into the Ohio Farm Sci­ence Review Hall of Fame, along with the college’s Dean. He has served on the Farm Sci­ence Review Pro­gram and Pol­icy Com­mit­tee in addi­tion to work­ing as a pro­fes­sor and researcher.

Jack­son noted Beurlein’s impor­tant research in soy­beans and the national con­tri­bu­tions he has made to agronomy.

A con­tract with Garv­er­ick Sur­vey­ing, LLC for max­i­mum bound­ary sur­vey rates was approved.

Octo­ber was rec­og­nized as “Man­u­fac­tur­ing Month in Ohio”. The com­mis­sion­ers’ agenda stated that Ohio is third largest man­u­fac­tur­ing state in the coun­try, 13% of the pop­u­la­tion is involved in man­u­fac­tur­ing. Work­shops, tele­casts, and other activ­i­ties will be avail­able in sup­port of state business.

Trans­fer of funds were approved for the Job & Fam­ily Ser­vice, the Court of Com­mon Pleas, and the Sheriff’s Office.

Also approved was the pay­ment of funds col­lected from mar­riage license and divorce dis­so­lu­tion fees to be given to Turn­ing Point (Con­cerned Cit­i­zens Against Vio­lence Against Women), as spec­i­fied by the Ohio Revised Code.

Appro­pri­a­tions of funds were also approved for the Court of Com­mon Pleas and for the Cour­t­house Ren­o­va­tion Project.

In answer to a ques­tion from the audi­ence, the com­mis­sion­ers answered that the Cour­t­house Ren­o­va­tion is now com­pletely depleted.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Sep 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.