Board of DD prepares for May levy; county website hacked

By Randa Wag­ner -
The com­mis­sion­ers approved a request Jan. 9 from the Mor­row County Board of Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties to request a cur­rent tax val­u­a­tion for the MCDD from the County Audi­tor. The board of DD is seek­ing place­ment of a 1.0 mill, 5-year new tax levy on the May 7, 2013 Pri­mary Elec­tion bal­lot.
The audi­tor must pro­vide the val­u­a­tion (the num­ber of mills required to gen­er­ate a spec­i­fied amount of rev­enue, or the dol­lar amount of rev­enue that would be gen­er­ated by a spec­i­fied num­ber of mills) ten days after a tax­ing author­ity requests it.
Com­mis­sioner Tom Harden reported Jan. 14 that the county’s web­site (www.morrowcounty.info/) was hacked into and is com­pletely shut down.
“There’s a lot of mal­ware out there attack­ing web­sites, and espe­cially the util­ity plants, try­ing to get into their soft­ware,” said Com­mis­sioner Tom Whis­ton. “If there’s some­thing that’s crit­i­cal to this coun­try, it’s the abil­ity to keep hack­ers from destroy­ing our com­put­ers. The prob­lem is, a lot of that mal­ware is set up where if you go to the (infected) site, it will then go to your com­puter. The CCAO (County Commissioner’s Asso­ci­a­tion) actu­ally had the same thing hap­pen. Do not log into their site.”
(Update 1–15/13 the Mor­row County site is now under main­te­nance.)
The com­mis­sion­ers approved a request from Devel­op­ment Direc­tor Pat Davies for unap­pro­pri­ated cer­ti­fied monies to adver­tise for work to bring the cour­t­house into ADA com­pli­ance in the amounts of $4,009.50 for Cost Allo­ca­tion and $62.50 for GIS Con­tract.
The cour­t­house is an his­toric build­ing, Com­mis­sioner Dick Miller noted, and the area lead­ing into the recorder’s and pro­ba­tion area are not ADA hand­i­capped acces­si­ble. “We have to estab­lish a way to get up those steps in case a hand­i­capped per­son might want to use the offices.”
“The $106,00 for the (CDBG*) for­mula grant** has actu­ally been awarded to Mor­row County,” Davies explained. “We go through a process to get the funds released for this par­tic­u­lar activ­ity. The funds have already been released for Admin, plan­ning and fair hous­ing. These dol­lars will come out of the admin dol­lars to pay for the ad. The project dol­lars are reserved for the project.”
Davies said new fed­eral stan­dards require the county to address the iss­sue of the cour­t­house being ADA com­pli­ant.
In other busi­ness Jan. 9:
The com­mis­sion­ers approved the August, Sep­tem­ber and Octo­ber 2012, Per­for­mance Qual­ity Improve­ment (PQI) Com­mit­tee Report as sub­mit­ted by Don Wake, Direc­tor Job & Fam­ily Ser­vices. The report includes depart­men­tal track­ing, sta­tis­tics in monthly newslet­ter, safety com­mit­tee report, chil­dren in cus­tody, eval­u­a­tion track­ing, monthly risk review reports.
The com­mis­sion­ers also approved to appro­pri­ate (from unap­pro­pri­ated cer­ti­fied monies) for the Zon­ing Office for: Space and Ser­vice Allo­ca­tion $4,563.50 and Con­tracts $ 250.00.
Com­mis­sion­ers approved a request for CHIP grant funds from Pat Davies for $4,550.00 for home repairs for prop­er­ties on TR 59, Mt. Gilead and on Mid­land Avenue in Card­ing­ton. Also approved was a draw­down of $16,500.00 from the same fund for rental assis­tance of $15,000.00 and gen­eral expenses of $1,500.00. (CHIP is the Com­mu­nity Hous­ing Improve­ment Pro­gram.)
The Board of Mor­row County Com­mis­sion­ers approved res­o­lu­tion 12-R-627 on Decem­ber 12, 2012, for the issuance of notes in the amount of $2,000,000 for the cour­t­house ren­o­va­tion project. Mor­row County must receive a new Moody Rat­ing for pric­ing of the new note, and com­plete a Fed­eral Income Tax­a­tion Infor­ma­tion Ques­tion­naire, required by Bricker & Eck­ler LLP, bond coun­sel. Chair­man Tom Whis­ton was autho­rized to sign the Fed­eral Income Tax­a­tion Infor­ma­tion Ques­tion­naire.
* Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Block Grant Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Pro­gram
** A for­mula grant is a United States fed­eral grant spec­i­fy­ing a pre­cise for­mula in the leg­is­la­tion cre­at­ing the pro­gram.
In this case, the for­mula is:
– Place an ad for the work to be done
– wait for the seven-day com­ment period
– send the author­i­ties a request for release of funds
– wait for the 15-day com­ment period for the state
– after 30 days the state will release the funds
– the project plan­ning can begin with the ser­vices of an archi­tect or civil/structural engi­neer
– after 30 days of plan­ning, the doc­u­ments and spec­i­fi­ca­tions are drawn up
– then a bid date is selected and the work is adver­tised for 30–60 days
– bids come in and are cri­tiqued for com­pli­ance and cost esti­mates
Jan­u­ary 14 meet­ing
The ques­tion of a sewer sys­tem being devel­oped in Iberia was raised.
“We have to do a study to see if it’s required,” said Devel­op­ment Direc­tor Pat Davies. “The health depart­ment has iden­ti­fied it as an area of inter­est because of the many vio­la­tions they’ve had come in. What we’ve done is launched a study to know what’s going on there.”
The engi­neer­ing firm of Fan­ning Howey has com­mis­sioned an engi­neer to study the north­ern part of the county and address the issues, Davies said. Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course has made a request to see if it’s viable and afford­able for them to hook into Johnsville’s sys­tem, because they would like to upgrade their facil­i­ties. Another area of con­cern is County-Line Road near State Route 19, which has been an ongo­ing legal issue.
“After some of the issues you’ve had with that engi­neer­ing firm, why in the world would you have (that firm) back?” asked a res­i­dent.
When Davies asked for an exam­ple of ‘issues’, the res­i­dent said, “like try­ing to run sewage uphill, instead of putting your lift sta­tion down, hav­ing to go ahead and replumb a house because they set the lift sta­tion uphill instead of down; going under U.S. 42 with two pipes and not hook­ing up the houses on the north side of 42; lots of places had big expenses due to that engi­neer­ing.”
“This is just the study,” Davies said, say­ing they hadn’t decided on the firm.
Park dis­trict by Shauck Ceme­try, from U.S. 42 to Cliff Walker’s, the creek is com­pletely plugged up with debris. Some­body needs to clean it up.
The area is located on U.S. 42 where the new bridge went in.
A res­i­dent asked about when Dol­lar Gen­eral would start build­ing west of Marengo on SR 229. Davies said the land must be pur­chased first; the lot split passed and has been signed but is being held because the land has not been pur­chased from the landowner.
“We had our busi­ness tech­ni­cal review and County Engi­neer Randy Bush made sure every­one under­stood there are no storm water reg­u­la­tions in Mor­row County,” Davies said. “The set of plans we have back show they’re will­ing to address all the [mat­ters] we highly sug­gested but couldn’t require. The most local author­i­ties still believe that’s a bad loca­tion because of the water (drainage) issue. That was expressed to them as well. At this time, we’re just wait­ing on their process of pur­chas­ing the land.”
In the mat­ter of annual posi­tions on the board and com­mit­tees:
Tom Whis­ton was elected as chair­man of the Mor­row County Board of Com­mis­sion­ers and Tom Harden was elected as vice-chairman of the board.
Tom Harden was appointed as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the DKMM Solid Waste Pol­icy Com­mit­tee for 2013.
Dick Miller was appointed as the Com­mis­sion­ers’ rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the 911 Com­mit­tee, LEPC Com­mit­tee, Home­land Secu­rity, and Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency for 2013.
Tom Whis­ton was appointed as rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Board of Trustees Coun­cil on Aging for 2013.
Tom Harden was appointed as the Com­mis­sion­ers’ rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Fam­ily & Children’s First Coun­cil for 2013.
Tom Harden was appointed to rep­re­sent the Board of Com­mis­sion­ers at MCTC meet­ings in 2013.
Dick Miller was appointed to rep­re­sent the Board of Com­mis­sion­ers at the Mor­row County Soil and Water Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict meet­ings in 2013.
Tom Whis­ton was appointed to serve on the records com­mis­sion for 2013.
Tom Whis­ton was appointed as the Commissioner’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive to CORSA for 2013
Arti­cle IV, Sec­tion 6, of the Code of Reg­u­la­tions of the County Com­mis­sion­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion of Ohio requires each mem­ber county to des­ig­nate an Offi­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and Alter­nate (for the pur­pose of vot­ing at any annual or spe­cial meet­ing of the Asso­ci­a­tion). Only a mem­ber of the Board of County Com­mis­sion­ers is eli­gi­ble to be des­ig­nated as the Offi­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive and Alter­nate. Tom Whis­ton was des­ig­nated as the Offi­cial Vot­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Mor­row County. Dick Miller is des­ig­nated as the Alter­nate Vot­ing Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Mor­row County.
Reg­u­lar sched­uled ses­sions for 2013 will remain the same as 2012; at the Mor­row County Com­mis­sion­ers Office at 80 North Wal­nut Street, Mt. Gilead, Ohio, on Mon­day morn­ings at 9 a.m., and Wednes­day morn­ings at 9 a.m., with the excep­tion of a hol­i­day occur­ring on a Mon­day or Wednes­day.
Cour­t­house Main­te­nance Super­vi­sor Mark Math­ews was autho­rized to sign all doc­u­ments and in all ways act as the Autho­rized Agent rel­a­tive to the Pub­lic Assis­tance Grant Pro­gram for FEMA, to file a claim for dam­age done dur­ing the period of June 29 through July 2, 2012, in which blow­ing debris broke out a 48″ round wooden framed win­dow in the County Cour­t­house.
Mor­row County is a recip­i­ent of Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Block Grant (CDBG) Pro­gram and has been awarded funds from the State of Ohio, Depart­ment of Devel­op­ment. Devel­op­ment Direc­tor Pat Davies will pro­vide cit­i­zens with a gen­eral overview of past CDBG pro­grams and infor­ma­tion about the FY 2013 Small Cities CDBG Pro­gram, includ­ing an expla­na­tion of eli­gi­ble activ­i­ties, pos­si­bly Feb. 6 at 11 a.m. The date will be posted in the Sen­tinel.
The CDBG pro­gram can fund a broad range of activ­i­ties, includ­ing, but not lim­ited to: eco­nomic devel­op­ment; street, water sup­ply, drainage and san­i­tary improve­ments; demo­li­tion of unsafe struc­tures; hous­ing and neigh­bor­hood facil­i­ties improve­ments; fair hous­ing and pub­lic ser­vices.
A motion to sell, by sealed bids, the fol­low­ing vehi­cle and items, and to post notice of sell was approved. Bids will be received by the Board of Com­mis­sion­ers until 10 a.m. on Feb. 13, 2013, at which time the bids will be opened and read. The Board of Com­mis­sion­ers reserve the right to reject or accept any or all bids. The vehi­cle and equip­ment are sold “AS IS” with no war­ranty, either writ­ten or implied. All items will not be released until pay­ment is made.
Item #1: 1999 Dodge Ram 2500 Truck VIN# 3B7KF26WXXM522382, mileage 144135
2 door Model: Laramie SLT 4 wheel drive, 8′ bed, blue/silver in color
V10 mag­num gas engine, auto­matic trans­mis­sion
Vehi­cle needs brakes, shocks, front end work, motor has a miss.
Item #2: Salt spreader– brand name : Snow Ex , 8ft super duty
“Boss” snow plow with mount­ings and con­trols.
Vehi­cle, snow plow and salt spreader can be viewed at Whet­stone River Fam­ily Cen­ter, 406 Bank Street, Mt. Gilead, Ohio, between the hours of 9:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Mon­day through Thurs­day. Con­tact Barry Long at 419–947-7045.
The fol­low­ing indi­vid­u­als were apponted to the Mor­row County to the Mor­row County Job and Fam­ily Ser­vices Plan­ning Committee/Advisory Board, effec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2013: Helpline Sue Han­son, Direc­tor; Mor­row County Board of Devel­op­men­tal Dis­abil­i­ties Nancy Foglesong, Direc­tor; Mor­row County Busi­ness Owner Louie Cortez; Mor­row County Fam­ily & Chil­dren First Coun­cil Kanda Ben­ner, Coor­di­na­tor; Mor­row County Health Depart­ment Angela Smith, Health Com­mis­sioner; Mor­row County Hos­pice Dave Matos, Chap­lain; Mor­row County Job & Fam­ily Ser­vices Sundie Brown, Assis­tant Direc­tor; Mor­row County Job & Fam­ily Ser­vices Cathy Fran­cis, Pro­gram Admin­is­tra­tor; Mor­row County Job & Fam­ily Ser­vices Sharla O’Keeffe, Admin­is­tra­tor, Fam­ily & Chil­dren Ser­vices; Mor­row County Job & Fam­ily Ser­vices
Don Wake, Direc­tor; Mor­row County Seniors on Cen­ter Steve Crab­tree, Direc­tor; Mor­row County Trans­porta­tion Col­lab­o­ra­tive; Tim Maceyko, Coor­di­na­tor; Mor­row Delaware Men­tal Health; Steve Hedge, Direc­tor; North­mor Local Schools Brent Winand, Super­in­ten­dent; Ohio Heart­land Com­mu­nity Action Com­mis­sion; Robert Fore­man, HEAP Coordinator/Morrow County Cen­ter Director.

Posted by Taylor Kaser on Jan 16 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.