At the Windham Township Board of Trustees meeting last Thursday evening at Windham Township Hall, the Board approved the use of a grant from the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council to purchase new blinds for the windows in the main hall and the back office for $4,260.
“This gentleman came, and we met with him on Saturday, and he sent me a pricing on this,” said Trustee and Road Contact Brian Miller. “They are white blinds that blend in, they are clean, he would have to do a double-tiered stack because of the height of it. These could be washed down if need be and are the cleanest.”
According to Fiscal Officer Casey Timmons, the blinds are two-inch Everwood Faux Wood Blinds, and each window would have two individual operating blinds. The cost for the blinds the in the main hall would be $3,120 while the price to install the new blinds in the back office would be $1,140.
Miller said that the representative he met with would install the blinds himself, as he has 28 years of experience in the business. He added that he thought it was a fair price.
Chairman, Fire Contact and Trustee Dan Burns made a motion for the Board to approve the purchase of the new blinds with funds from the NOPEC grant and the motion carried unanimously.
Board of Zoning Appeals Vice Chairwoman Trish Kendrick and BZA member Noah Kendrick presented the Board with a complaint about a new policy established by Windham’s new postmaster.
According to Noah, the postmaster implemented a policy that required everyone in Windham to install mailboxes on their property and if they didn’t, their mail would be sent back to the main post office in Cleveland and returned to the sender.
Noah said that they had just learned of this new policy, as the postmaster did not officially notify residents about the new rule.
“He didn’t inform of us of this,” Noah added. “The clerk, Josh Hoskins, took it upon himself to notify people when he got back from vacation, but it had already been a week, so a week’s worth of mail had already been sent back to have returned or put a mailbox up.”
Trish Kendricks said that when she and Noah first moved to Windham, they had a small mailbox on their property, but it kept getting knocked off into a ditch and even when they tied it to the ground, the mail would get wet so for 22 years, their mail would be delivered to their P.O. Box at the local post office.
Trish added that another issue that residents had with the new rule was that several residents received medication in the mail and if they didn’t have a mailbox, they usually could visit the post office and pick it up in their P.O. Boxes.
Noah said that he spoke with the postmaster and inquired why he did not receive any official notice in his P.O. Box.
“He told me it was policy, and he didn’t expect me to expect him to prepare 500 letters and put them in the post office boxes,” Noah noted. “I said ‘No just one and photocopy them and tag the boxes. We had to forward, and the forward goes for a year.”
Miller informed the Board that the Township’s Road workers performed work on all of the roads again in June with a roadside mower and, weed whacking around the poles and will continue to do so when it is not so hot and outside. He added that the Township’s Road workers leveled a culvert for a resident on Gotham Road, fixed a ditch and culvert for another resident on Horn Road and also touched up a resident’s ditch on Colton Road.
He added that the Township’s Road workers performed roadside trimming of bushes along Werger and Colton Roads. He also said that the Township received complaints of tree issues on Gotham Road and he visited the site himself but did not think the tree issues presented a major threat.
Burns noted that once again, someone was stealing Township’s Road signs, as two more signs were taken last month.
“Whomever is taking the signs, hopefully they graduate this year and stop stealing signs because it is the same two signs all of the time,” Burns said.
Miller said that the Township was attempting to replace one of the stolen signs, which was for the bridge on Gotham Road but needed to special order it, as the sign they needed listed a 10-ton limit, and the Township did not have any signs that read less than a 15-ton limit.
He told the Board that the Township’s Road workers had completed the preliminary work for the chip & seal work to be performed on Hewins Road. He noted that the Township could still use a new roadside mower but Burns said that the one they have is doing a good enough job on the roads.
Trish added that the price for a new roadside mower was not worth the cost of road work that was needed for only nine miles of road in the Township.
Vice Chairman, Cemetery Contact and Trustee Rich Gano was not present at the meeting so Burns provided the cemetery updates, reporting there were a few footers poured in the cemetery, including a new footer for the new columbarium that the Board had previously purchased.
He added that the Board needed to install a headstone in the fall when the Township performed indigent burials.
The Board further discussed the fees they needed to set for each unit in the columbarium and Burns suggested that the fees be between $700-800 for Township residents, $1,000-1,100 for Village residents and $1,300-1,400 for non-Windham residents.
“Especially because our cemetery is getting so tight, I did the last pour, and it is getting harder to get a machine in there,” Burns said. “If we hit a headstone, we are responsible for it and when you fill the back of the gator full of concrete, you can’t steer because there is too much weight in it.”
Miller said that Gano had informed him that he was still looking at pricing options.
Burns added that the Board needed to consider purchasing a concrete buggy if the Township continued to be responsible for pouring footers.
Miller suggested that the Board consider letting the company that designs the headstones be responsible for pouring footers in the future, as it would potentially be more cost-effective for the Board.
BZA Chairwoman Becky Phillips cautioned the Board that by relinquishing that responsibility, it would lose control over the consistency of the footers if someone else took on that role.
Burns read an email from Township Zoning Inspector Jake Sweet, which noted that he received one application for a permit for a shed on a property on Horn Road. He also referenced Ohio Revised Code 505.87 ORC, which provides that if the Township notifies a resident to abate a nuisance caused by such things as overgrown vegetation, garbage refuses etc., the township can remove the nuisance.
“It is hard for us to get things done, people to clean their property, people to do the things that should be done. This is just another step that we can use and then if the process goes through, we will have to pay for the property to be cleaned up,” Burns told the Board.
He added that the cost of the property clean-up would be assessed to the resident’s property taxes and Portage County would reimburse the Township for all costs. The Board decided to table the discussion to the next meeting when Gano is present.
Burns informed the Board that the Fire Department had received 370 calls so far in 2026, had tested three dry hydrants in the Township, and had applied for and received a state grant of $3500 to purchase emergency medical service supplies.
He said that the Fire Department had been covering most of their shifts and all equipment has been functioning well lately. He added that the new ambulance recently purchased from Ravenna was working well, including the power cot.
Miller said that the Township put up a flag on the porch of Township Hall to celebrate Independence Day weekend and that the work on the building’s chimney funded by a NOPEC grant had recently been completed.
The Board will reconvene for its next meeting on Aug. 6 at Windham Township Hall at 6 p.m.
