SANITARY SEWER PROJECT UPDATE:
The proposed sanitary sewer project that includes replacement of the village’s Main Street and Stone Street Lift Stations, along with gas powered generators and improvements at the Sewer Plant will be received Community Development Block Grant funding. An application will be filed with the Office of Community Development requesting $199,026 in grant funds. The Paulding County Commissioners will be the sponsor for the CDBG funds as they have in place all of the requirements to receive federal dollars passed through to the state. As a part of that sponsorship by the Commissioners, a memorandum of understanding will be required to be signed by the Village and the County Commissioners. A resolution/ordinance will be presented Tuesday to allow the Mayor to sign on behalf of the Village.
MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW TO GO INTO EFFECT IN SEPTEMBER, 2017:
Sub. House Bill 523 was passed in September of 2016 which deals with Medical Marijuana. As a part of this bill, dispensaries of the medical marijuana can be prohibited, limited to the number of retail dispensaries that a municipality/township will allow through zoning. Through zoning the village can prohibit a cultivator, processor, retail dispensary or laboratory from being located or located within 500 feet of a school, church, public library, public playground or public park. I feel that council needs to be aware of how this law can impact the village, not only in the potential establishments of retail dispensaries, but also how we need to address this issue in our personnel handbook. The issue of zoning needs to be in place before September, 2017 is my understanding on how the law will affect us. There are still parts of the bill that need direction from the state, but this one we can act on now.
The Village’s current Drug Free Workplace Policy, which lists Medical Marijuana as a schedule II controlled substance, does prohibits the unlawful manufacture, distribution, dispensation, possession or use of a controlled substance by any employee which takes place in whole or in part of the Village’s workplace. So this is already a part of our current personnel handbook, but in order to be clear to current and future employees on how medical marijuana will be dealt with, we show include language that specifically states that, despite Ohio’s new law, medical marijuana is prohibited.
As far as zoning goes, the planning commission would need to take up this issue and propose the change to either allow, disallow or control the number of dispensaries and where they could be located in the Village, but I felt council feelings on this issue should help direct planning commission’s recommendations. We can discuss this Tuesday at council meeting.
SENATE BILL 199 CONCEAL CARRY AMENDMENTS:
This bill allows a person, in this case employee, with a valid concealed handgun license to be able to have his/her gun locked in the employee’s privately owned vehicle as long as the vehicle is in a location where it is otherwise permitted to be. Our personnel handbook provide grounds for disciplinary action and penalties under subsection C on the Group III offense, number 8 reads “unauthorized carrying or possession of firearms on Village property. This, according to Melanie after her review of Senate Bill 199, appears to be complaint with the new concealed carry laws but it may want to include specific language as provided in Section 2923.1210 (Senate Bill 199) to make it clear.
COUNTY-WIDE DEMOLITION PROGRAM:
The Paulding County Commissioners has set aside monies to assist in the demolition of blighted, residential structures. They are asking each governmental unit in the County to send a list back to MVPO by March 1, 2017 of any properties we would like to have demolished. The property will remain in the residential property owners name after demo and clean up has been completed. The home must be empty for at least 90 and must be verifiable. The Village will most likely submit the Synder property on E. Woodcox and possible another vacant property located on Park Avenue. The property owners must sign that they are willing to have the structure removed. The Mayor and I will meet with the potential property owners in the next week to see if they will be agreeable to have their dilapidated structure included in this program.
RURAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP ATTENDED:
The undersigned attended a USDA Rural Development working in Findlay on Tuesday, February 14, 2017. The purpose of the workshop was to review what programs Rural Development has to offer to both communities and businesses in the areas of economic development and rural energy assistance, their main focus is on communities of populations of less than 50,000. USDA has both loans, grants and loan guarantees that can be apply for both by businesses and communities. Unfortunately their programs, as they would apply to the Village or CIC to assist in the development of the road and infrastructure to the S. Erie site, would be for only partial funding as their total allocation for these types of project would only allow them to fund $100,000 or less. They also stated that they could assist in putting together any grant/loan application, but their program could be layered with other infrastructure financing to get the property open and the water and sewer to the site. After the presentation, the undersigned and Jerry Zielke spoke to Rural Development about our proposed mixed use project and they felt they could assist with this initial infrastructure. I mentioned Maumee Valley Planning Organization could possibly assist with CDBG funding and they felt MVPO could definitely put a financing package together. This writer will stay in touch with the Jerry Zielke and MVPO in pushing this project forward.
GOLF CART LEGISLATION AND CHECKLIST:
Police Chief Clemens, Melanie and the undersigned is developing the ordinance and golf cart inspection check list in order to be able to enforce the under-speed vehicle changes in the law. According to Chief Clemens the Oho BMV needs to be made aware and approve of an area/location will be used to conduct the inspections. The golf carts can’t just be driven up to town hall and inspected in a parking space. As soon as this is determined and sent to BMV we will be able to pass an ordinance. We do have a checklist developed so we can answer any resident and/or business that needs to know what will be required on the Golf Cart to make it street ready.