Edison Village Council members thank voters for levy passage

By Alberta Stojkovic -

At Their Nov. 12 meet­ing, Edi­son Vil­lage coun­cil mem­bers thanked vot­ers for the pas­sage of two levies on Elec­tion Day. A third levy will be recounted because of the close vote. The two levies that passed were the fire replace­ment levy and the street levy renewal. The third levy for street lights was within just two votes of pass­ing and at the time of the meet­ing had not yet been recounted.

There was some dis­cus­sion about why the street light levy was so close when the other levies passed. It was gen­er­ally agreed that bet­ter pub­lic­ity on the pur­pose of that levy is needed. The word­ing on the bal­lot was for “cur­rent expenses”, but the pur­pose was for street light­ing. It was agreed that when the levy is on the bal­lot next time the pur­pose should be explained bet­ter to voters.

Coun­cil then went to the busi­ness of the munic­i­pal build­ing roof repair. Over the past six months the coun­cil has been con­sid­er­ing how best to finance the cost of the repair of the vil­lage office build­ing that houses the mayor’s office, clerk-treasurer’s office and coun­cil cham­bers. Since pay­ing a lump sum of almost $5,000 would drain the oper­at­ing account and bind other accounts, the coun­cil asked mem­bers of the Finance Com­mit­tee to look into the pos­si­bil­ity of a bank loan.

Before the vote to secure a loan, Ed Kline of First Knox National Bank in Mount Gilead explained how the bank would work with the vil­lage to do a bond issue. The bond issuance is a type of loan for the amount of $4,896.00 to repair the roof on the Edi­son Munic­i­pal Build­ing. Pay­ment of the loan would be in the amount of $91.31 per month at a 4.5 fixed inter­est rate for five years. There would be no penalty for early payment.

The coun­cil then passed Ordi­nance 2012–13 “autho­riz­ing the issuance of $4,896.00 of bonds for the pur­pose of pay­ing part of the cost of mak­ing repairs to the roof and under­lay­ment on the Mayor’s office and coun­cil cham­bers and declar­ing an emergency.”

Pay­ment of the loan will be from the water/sewer, street depart­ment and oper­at­ing funds. The com­mit­tee to secure the loan from First Knox included Mayor Sandy Ack­er­man, Coun­cil mem­ber Patti Feustal and Clerk/treasurer Roseanne Denty. Mayor Ack­er­man thanked Kline for work­ing with the vil­lage to make the repair of the roof and build­ing less of a finan­cial bur­den for the village.

Kline added that the bank is not charg­ing a loan fee to the vil­lage. He said the bond fee of $250 by the firm of Peck, Shaf­fer and Williams of Colum­bus is very reasonable.

Kline also sug­gested hav­ing a mechan­ics lean con­tract writ­ten by the vil­lage attor­ney. The pur­pose of this would be so that the mate­ri­als would be paid for the Edi­son work and not go to some other pur­pose of the builder. Mayor Ack­er­man said that the present con­tract with Beechy Builders state that mate­ri­als are to be brought to the vil­lage before the pay­ment is made. She will work with Attor­ney Denise Mar­tin to make sure all con­tracts are in order.

Street Com­mis­sioner, Jerry Reeder had two pur­chase orders approved by coun­cil. They approved $300.00 for stone for street berms and $200.00 for hand tools.

Reeder stated that the street paving project was not fin­ished cor­rectly. He asked the coun­cil to hold 10% of pay­ment until the street project was fin­ished right as he had pointed out to the con­trac­tor. He said an area by the man­hole cov­ers are a prob­lem and there are also sev­eral other details that weren’t done correctly.

Mayor Ack­er­man said that this was an OPWC (Ohio Pub­lic Works Com­mis­sion) project and they should be able to hold the 10% until the project is done right.

Reeder said they will begin work­ing on the vil­lage util­ity build­ing this month. They would like to have the build­ing up by Decem­ber. He said the street crew can do the prep work for the stone foun­da­tions. They found that the prop­erty for the build­ing has the remains of an old black­smith shop where the footer/foundation was.

Clerk-Treasurer Denty reported col­lec­tions from Mayor’s court of $1,670. Coun­cil approved her Pur­chase Order for $186.52 for Ruth Ann Crabaugh’s work in rec­on­cil­ing the account­ing system.

The next Edi­son Vil­lage Coun­cil meet­ing will be Mon. Nov. 26 at 7 p.m. in the vil­lage building.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Nov 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.