At the Windham Township Board of Trustees meeting last Thursday evening at the Windham Township Hall, the Board discussed several upcoming key decisions, including how best to invest the $300,000 proceeds they received from the recent sale of the factory on the site of the Windham Alloy.
“We are trying to make money off of the money instead of just setting it in an account and getting 2% or something,” Trustee, Chairman and Fire District contact Dan Burns said. “There are only certain ways we can do it legally in the State of Ohio.”
According to Fiscal Officer Casey Timmons, the Board currently has $100,000 siting in its operating account at Middlefield Bank, which does not earn any interest. Any money added to the operating account would be transferred into a sweep account which currently earns interest at the rate of 4%.
“We have different accounts, we have an operating account, and we have a sweep account, which earns one of our high interest rates and then we also have a money market account. When I deposit funds into the operating account, there is $100,000 always sitting there and if there is more, it sweeps up to our high yield account so that is where it sits,” she noted.
Since the Board is dealing with public funds, all funds must be insured. The maximum amount of insurance is $250,000 per account so the Middlefield Bank spreads the Board’s funds throughout different accounts, so the money is completely protected.
Timmons added that the Board had considered depositing its public funds in a different bank but that the Middlefield Bank was negotiating to increase the interest it will pay on funds deposited by the Township. She said that the Board was considering investing its surplus in a State Treasury Asset Reserve of Ohio account, an investment pool that allows government subdivisions to invest in high-grade, short-term securities.
Timmons informed the Board that she needed to find out more information about the STAR Ohio account.
Trustee and Road Contact Brian Miller told the Board that the Township’s Road workers had experienced some difficulty working on roads over the last several weeks because of the constant snowstorms.
He added that they were also in the process of installing new street signs around the Township that the Board had recently purchased courtesy of a grant.
Miller informed the Board that he had spoken with Jonathan Troyer, owner of Troyers Tree Services LLC, which specializes in tree removal, trimming, stump grinding and more, about working on Bryant and Gotham Roads to cut and trim trees and bushes that were growing into the roads.
“We drove around Saturday and checked Gotham West Road,” Miller said. “There were quite a few elms that were dropping already on the road. There were some clusters there and on Bryant which I thought was the worst to start with.”
The Board received an estimate from Troyer for $6,000 for the project.
Miller noted that the road workers had recently inspected some of the ditching that had been performed on the roads and had cleaned out a few key areas. They also identified several culverts that required the Township’s immediate attention. Miller planned to check on them as soon as possible.
The Township also completed a recent purchase of 50 additional tons of salt from Morton Salt.
Miller informed the Board that he had recently been contacted by Freedom Township Trustee and Chairman Jeffrey Derthick about the two Townships combining their efforts to complete a joint road project on Hewins Road.
Timmons told the Board that a down payment had been made on purchasing a columbarium for the cemetery. The Board also discussed the pricing strategy for each unit of the columbarium but decided not to make any formal decisions because Trustee, Vice Chairman and Cemetery Contact Rich Gano was not in attendance.
Burns proposed to the Board that it charge $700 to any Township resident interested in reserving a unit and $1,000 to any non-Township resident.
The Board also discussed building the columbarium on a wet spot in the cemetery, which often collected too much water from the rain and was unsuitable for any burial.
Burns suggested that the Board build a sidewalk or concrete path by the columbarium when the foundation started being poured, but that date was still to be determined.
Burns informed the Board that Zoning Inspector Jake Sweet had recently told him that a house on Fraser Road had recently been seized by the Portage County Prosecutor’s Office. He also advised the Board that he had received a letter from resident Colleen Thompson, who had recently made a zoning amendment proposal to allow residents to build a second dwelling on parcels that exceeded 10 acres, in response to a notice of zoning violations she had received from Sweet.
He said that letter had also been submitted to the Portage County Prosecutor’s Office and the Board was waiting for a decision before moving forward.
Thompson called into the meeting and informed the Board that she planned to show them documentation of Daryl McGuire’s status of being her farmhand and predominant person that cared for the agriculture, livestock and hay production and proof of her LCC license for her farm and state income tax return from the previous two years.
Burns said that he would send her the contact information of the new attorney at the Portage County Prosecutor’s Office, James Armstrong, who would be handling the matter.
Board of Zoning Appeals Vice Chairwoman Tricia Kendricks inquired about the Board’s thoughts about changing the zoning variance fee policies, as they had previously discussed charging applicants the same amount of expenses that the Township incurred.
Burns informed Kendrick that Sweet was still researching the matter.
Burns told the Board that Windham’s Fire Department had responded to 123 calls as of Thursday. He added the Fire Department provided aid to the community ambulance in February, which services Garrettsville, Nelson and Freedom, and it had also provided assistance to Windham last month as well.
He said that the ambulance that the Fire Department had recently purchased from the City of Ravenna was brought in for repair because of a wire that was rusting and one of the lights was not functioning, but the ambulance was expected to be returned to action on Friday.
“They said everything is going good, they are covering most of their shifts, so everything seems to be good going down there at the fire department,” Burns said.
The Board then discussed the matter of negotiating a new contract with American Tower, which had leased land on State Route 303 for a cell tower. Burns said that he sent all the information to attorney Chris Meduri of the Portage County Prosecutor’s Office.
“They want us to just renew a lease with them and not a new one and just extend it for 10 years and give us a $10,000 bonus to keep doing what we are doing,” he informed the Board. “He is recommending that we don’t do that and sign a new contract with them and add some other legal language.”
Timmons said that a resident, Margaret Gearhart, requested having an eagle sculpture installed on the flagpole on the Township’s green, as the previous one had been broken several years ago. She added that Gearhart already had an eagle sculpture in her possession that could be placed on the flagpole as soon as possible.
The Board will reconvene for its next meeting on April 2 at Windham Township Hall at 6 p.m.
