Portage County Auditor Matt Kelly attended the Windham Township Board of Trustees meeting last Thursday evening at Windham Town Hall. He provided updates on the County’s real property assessments and taxes.
According to Kelly, all property appraisers were out in the community assessing real property values to determine the assessed value of real property and corresponding property taxes. In the counties surrounding Portage County, property values had increased by 31%.
“That is not dollar for dollar,” Kelly added. “Their taxes did not go up 31% but they will go up nonetheless. Property values will go up but that does not equate to your taxes going up. Your value will not go up and your taxes will not go down. It does not work like that, and I wish they did.”
Board of Zoning Appeals Chairman Todd Phillips asked how it affected school levies.
Kelly replied that the school levies equated to about 66% of an individual’s property tax.
“There are a lot of different variables,” he acknowledged. “The system has gotten so complicated. For simplicity or for fairness, I don’t think that Columbus should handle the property owner every single time.”
Phillips asked if property owners can appeal their property values, Kelly said there would be an appeal process through the Board of Revision.
Property owners can schedule meetings with the property assesment team to contet the validity of their property values with the Portage County Auditor’s office.
Road Contact and Trustee Brian Miller said that the township’s roadside mower had been returned and was fully operational. He also proposed that the board consider purchasing another piece of roadside equipment with the COVID funds before they expired at the end of the year.
Fiscal Officer Casey Timmons reported that the board did not need to use all of the funds before the year was over but did have to encumber them before that time.
Miller added that the township was continuing to check the roads to see if there was more ditching required. They had finished ditching on Shanks Road but Colton Road still needed more work.
“Of course we have a little bit of flooding on different parts of our roads but it is not too bad,” he said. “Hopkins Road was probably the worst. We live in a flood plainhere in Windham Township.”
Timmons said that she was working on sending the title to the township’s truck to Fairway Ford as they continued work on making sure they would be reimbursed for it under Ohio’s Lemon Law.
Cemetery contact and Vice Chairman Rich Gano said the cemetery had painted the pins orange for the new indigent burial lots and also posted a notification on the website to inform residents of the winter clean-up that would take place on the weekend of April 26 and 27.
Board Charmain and Fire contact Dan Burns added an update about the new cemetery fence, noting that inmates removed the old fence and that he had a solution to how the Board could afford a new fence. He said his contact would install a black fence to go down both sides and would take part of the old fence as partial payment for the newer one.
“We are going to make the openings on the new cemetery two feet wider than the old cemetery so it is easier to get out of the driveways,” Burns noted. “We had the inmates do all of the labor.”
Zoning Inspector Jake Sweet said he had received requests for three permits in March, a deck addition and two garages. He added that he had received complaints about rubbish on people’s property.
He also provided an update on the Bryant Road permit violations, where someone had built two structures on their r property without the proper permits. Sweet said he had sent a letter informing that person of the infractions and there would be a 30-day waiting period before the Portage County Prosecutor’s Office intervened.
Gano informed the Board that he had recently spoken with Portage County Land Bank Executive Director Dan Morganti about State Route 303 Property 9092 and Morganti had asked him to contact the county treasurer to verify the property’s tax delinquency and the bank would seek tax foreclosure.
Phillips asked the Board if there had been any objections filed about the special meeting held on March 17 to modify the language in the zoning code and they said no.
He then said that the Board of Zoning Appeals was confused on which zoning code the Windham Township Zoning Commission was following.
“I am going to settle this once and for all,” Gano said. “This has gone on too long. There is not a 2024 version and what we are going to do is have original planning print copies and bind them, take their books and trade.”
Phillips said that the Windham Township Zoning Commission had referred to the 2015 code but an issue had recently surfaced when they could not find a section in the 2015 code at the last meeting.
Phillips requested that one of the Trustees attend the next Windham Township Zoning Commission meeting to clarify which code the township should comply with.
Phillips petitioned the Board to pass a resolution that would change the frontage of the substandard lots from 200 feet to 150 feet. He said that the new policy would clean up substandard lots and provide more growth in Windham.
The resolution was approved and will be sent to the Board of Zoning Appeals and the Portage County Regional Planning Committee.
Burns said that the fire department was steadily improving at having its own workers cover shifts but was also in need of a new ambulance. He proposed that the board seek a levy that would allow the fire department to have the necessary funds to purchase one.
“My problem is that we are not going to have an ambulance,” he said. “If it breaks down, it takes another year to go through the process and then it is six more months to get the money. This probably should have been done ten years ago but it was not.”
Kelly told Burns to send him a proposal and he would review it.
Burns concluded the meeting by saying that Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski was going to re-open the North Post of the Town Hall soon. Inmates had already painted the interior and Zuchowski was waiting for the arrival of a new computer to open the small office in the Town Hall.
“It’s been close to 15 years since lots of people came here but they put new flooring in here,” Burns said. “He will have the deputies start using it as a home area. I have already seen some deputies up here. They handed out some keys so it is kind of already open but it is not fully open.”
The next meeting is scheduled to take place on May 2 at Windham Town Hall at 6 p.m.
