Galion City Council plays to a full house

By Rachel Mendell

Inquirer Edi­tor

Galion city coun­cil played to a packed house when it met to dis­cuss leg­is­la­tion Tues­day, Sept. 11. Mem­bers of the com­mu­nity set up extra chairs inside and out­side of coun­cil chambers.

Appro­pri­a­tions were increased to com­pen­sate for repair­ing and replac­ing police and fire gear that was dam­aged due to a light­ning strike in early July (Ord. 2012–72). Coun­cil approved the amount of $49,056 to be trans­ferred into the gen­eral fund for that pur­pose. Coun­cil mem­ber Cathy George noted that dur­ing a recent ride-along with a mem­ber of the Galion Police Depart­ment the radio trans­mis­sions were gar­bled and the offi­cer needed to ask the dis­patcher sev­eral times to repeat infor­ma­tion. “These repairs are needed,” George said.

Appro­pri­a­tions were amended to allow for a small con­struc­tion project to change the light­ing sched­ule on Heise Park Lane and Port­land Way North (Ord. 2012–73) in the amount of $4,927. This should alle­vi­ate traf­fic back ups on Port­land Way dur­ing school hours by allow­ing more traf­fic to turn left into Heise Park with­out try­ing to “beat the on-coming traffic.”

Coun­cil approved a trans­fer of $1,800 for dis­patch to update their records system.

In finan­cial mat­ters, coun­cil heard the report by Karen Wal­ters that had been requested by Roberta Wade. To date, estate tax received by the city since 2004 totaled $1,261,536. “That’s an aver­age of $140,000 per year in estate taxes,” said Wal­ters. Wade noted that the estate tax would be going away Jan.1. “We’re cer­tainly going to miss it,” she said.

Wal­ters con­tin­ued that in the past month there was a soft­ware glitch that fig­ured util­ity bills as actual esti­mated which the finance depart­ment is try­ing to fix.

Wade con­tin­ued that the next finance com­mit­tee meet­ing (sched­uled for Sept. 27 at 9 a.m.) would deal with why the city invested in Prairie State and used a con­sul­tant that also worked for AMP. Wade said she also had ques­tions about the insert that was added to the util­ity billing.

George said the laws and ordi­nances com­mit­tee was work­ing on gam­ing reg­u­la­tions, prob­lems with vacant homes not being clean and secure, and garage sales that seem to last for­ever. The com­mit­tee would also dis­cuss a col­lec­tion pol­icy for utilities.

Coun­cil mem­ber Tom Fell­ner reported that Plan­ning, Zon­ing and Util­i­ties would meet Sept. 25 at 6:15 p.m. There would also be a pub­lic hear­ing Oct. 11.

Coun­cil mem­ber Ken Bod­kins, speak­ing for the parks and recre­ation com­mit­tee, that there is a prob­lem with graf­fiti at Cobey Park that needs to be addressed. He also said he would be speak­ing with Dr. Ressal­lat con­cern­ing his offer to finance the fenc­ing project at Heise Park between the city prop­erty and his own.

In other busi­ness, the clerk read three let­ters to coun­cil: A thank you from the Sor­rick fam­ily, a thank you to the line depart­ment for a job well done and a let­ter in sup­port of Bod­kins remain­ing on council.

In city man­ager com­ments, Gene Toy said the street resur­fac­ing project should begin in a few weeks; Okto­ber­fest was sched­uled for Sept. 27–29 and the last Hot Dogs on the Square would be this Fri­day from 11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.

In coun­cil pres­i­dent com­ments, Gail Baldinger asked for a moment of silence in remem­brance of 9–11.

In cit­i­zen con­cerns, Eric Smith said he was a friend of Bod­kins and was con­cerned that peo­ple in town were talk­ing of boy­cotting his busi­nesses. “When you boy­cott busi­ness, you’re cre­at­ing suf­fer­ing for other peo­ple … It hurts a lot more peo­ple than just Ken.” Smith requested coun­cil that the pun­ish­ment should be in coun­cil, not in his business.

Fell­ner agreed say­ing there are dis­tinct sit­u­a­tions going on in the city and they were all sep­a­rate issues. “We’re not here to pun­ish Ken,” he said.

Res­i­dent Mike Kochheiser said, “I think you guys are mak­ing a big witch hunt. He’s [Ken Bod­kins] apol­o­gized. He cares for the community.”

Res­i­dent Richard Swain said he was tired of coun­cil mem­bers doing their busi­ness in the news­pa­per. “It’s time for this to stop. Stay out of the news­pa­per and get back to busi­ness.” He also agreed with oth­ers that the com­ment that ignited the recent racial con­tro­versy was not a racial slur. He asked if any­one knew the eth­nic­ity of the Ressal­lat fam­ily, which was then stated to be Cau­casian. Swain fin­ished with a by-the-way com­ment, “They don’t even have camels in Iran.”

Res­i­dent Don Faulds invited the com­mu­nity to come to a meet­ing at the Galion High School gym­na­sium Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. The PSEC report would be read. Mem­bers of the Ohio Cit­i­zens Action Group would be on-hand to answer ques­tions and present “the promise vs. the real­ity.” Faulds said he had requested coun­cil for a pub­lic forum to dis­cuss the Prairie State issue and it had never come to pass. So he took it upon him­self to orga­nize one. Other share­holder com­mu­ni­ties have been invited to par­tic­i­pate as well. So far, Faulds said, all the city has paid is inter­est on the bond pay­ment with no elec­tric­ity [com­ing into the city to show for it. Faulds stressed that the meet­ing would be an infor­ma­tional ses­sion only, not a gripe ses­sion. “We’re all sit­ting on the Titanic and the elected offi­cials are arrang­ing the deck chairs,” he said.

Res­i­dent Bob Cerar was last to speak in cit­i­zens’ com­ments. He said he feels bad for the city. There are so many peo­ple who are so sen­si­tive. “We should be held to a higher stan­dard.” He requested that coun­cil ask for the res­ig­na­tion of Roberta Wade for break­ing her oath of office and breach­ing the trust of the com­mu­nity. He asked that Fell­ner be con­sis­tent. [Fell­ner had ear­lier sec­onded the motion to ask for mem­ber Bod­kins res­ig­na­tion from council.]

Posted by Rachel Mendell on Sep 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.