February 2025
NEWTON TOWNSHIP MINUTES 2-11-2025
Newton Township Trustees met in regular session on Tuesday, February 11, 2025. Those in attendance were Craig Knox, Fire Chief; Larken Slack, Derek Dozer and Randy Elson; Township Trustees and Paula Frank, Fiscal Officer. Also in attendance were Township residents: Brandon Stackhouse, Sam Lantz, Shane Stephenson, and Renee Stackhouse.
Meeting was called to order by Trustee Elson at 6:00 pm.
Pledge to the flag was led by Randy Elson.
Agenda: approved.
Minutes: approved.
Public Participation: none.
Fire Department Business:
· There were 109 dispatched calls in January. 75 in Muskingum County and 37 in Perry County. They had 27 less calls in January of this year compared to last year.
· They had 14 uncovered 12-hour shifts as a result of 18 call-offs.
· New rope and water rescue equipment is in and training has begun.
· They need new hose racks. They are still using old racks that they built when they were at the old station. Aaron Evancho has agreed to charge $1500. Goodman Steel supplies will cost $1575 and Grainger supplies will be $900. The total project is $3,975 for 2 hose racks. Craig is asking permission to have Aaron build hose racks. The trustees were ok with that.
· Valves leaking on the Rescue and Brad replaced the valves on site.
· Medic 1081 went to Hinderer for some warranty work.
· They are working on procurement for a new utility truck. Craig found out that the township was not a participant in the State Cooperative Purchasing, but they are now. Dutro is not the state award vendor but as long as they price of the truck is below the state awarded bid, they can purchase from them. The truck price is $54,976. The bed and plow will be $24,158 from Ace Truck. They had budgeted $100,000 for the overall purchase. Delivery is out 12 weeks, if the board is ok to go ahead and order the truck. The utility body is the same as the brush truck, so the skid could be taken out of the brush truck. Larken made a motion to purchase the truck, Randy seconded the motion. Motion carried. The old truck will be bid out for sale. Craig presented Resolution 03/2025 authorizing the purchase of the truck.
· They had $3200 left on the FEMA grant so they were allowed to purchase anything listed as a high priority item. There was still some rope rescue equipment that they needed, so they were able to purchase that.
· The AED’s are both installed in the building.
Assistant Chief: none.
Road Report:
· They are working on maintenance of vehicles at the shop
· They have the new furnace and gas line installed at the shop.
· Plan to focus on cold patching some holes this week. Butcherknife is a mess due to logging trucks traveling in and out. Jason thinks they are done now, so he wants to get those holes fixed.
· The ditch bucket is not compatible with the new hoe he wondered about purchasing a new one. The current bucket will get torn up by the new hoe because of the power of the hoe. The new bucket would come from Ames out of Canada. Derek made a motion to purchase the new bucket. Randy seconded the motion. Motion carried. Jason said we can bid out the sale of the old bucket and get around $4,000 for it.
· They discussed cracks in some of the new pavement and how to fix it.
· Workman Road – no address, there is traffic going into a lot there, with a camper, and they are making a mess. There is a culvert there but there is no actual driveway so mud is washing down into the road.
Old Business: Derek attended the Ohio Township Association conference last week. He wanted to clarify how to enter into and exit executive session. Decisions cannot be made in executive session, it needs to be done once session is over, during the public meeting. People are suing municipalities and Townships for doing this incorrectly.
He attended a session on the marijuana laws and how the state is wanting to take the money from Townships for the new dispensaries.
He also attending a few sessions on Sunshine Laws and how to be careful not to discuss Township business outside of a public meeting.
Derek also went to a session about vehicle speed limits and how they can be enforced. They said inside a subdivision that is plotted as such, like Georgia Pines, all they would have to do is create a resolution stating what the limit is for that subdivision. Craig agreed that the ORC already states that subdivisions are 25 mph. It is the non-journaled country roads that default to 55 mph unless the political subdivision, upon completing the technical survey and speed analysis, etc., can be lowered. Craig said that is very expensive to do.
Larken said once the freeze is over, he wants to revisit the Bolyard mess.
New Business: Larken got a call from Troy Cole about the Boyd properties. Craig said that Troy was visiting that area, in his EMA role, and stated that they think they can turn him into the EPA due to oil on the road, etc.
Derek has an old PC that he uses for the website updates. The Fiscal Officer will be getting a new printer and a new PC, so Derek could potentially have the old laptop for that purpose.
Trustees Reports:
Elson—none.
Dozer—none.
Slack— none.
Fiscal Officer Report:
· Distributed Grassroots Clippings
· Presented Resolution 01/2025 to adopt permanent appropriations for 2025.
· Decision needs made on which Aetna plan we want to go with as this is a significant decrease in monthly cost to the township. Resolution 02/2025 was passed making Aetna Plan CPOSII 1000 100/50 effective March 1st, at a monthly cost of approximately $11,000. The board also agreed that they would not mind adding dental for the quoted price of approximately $600 per month for the group.
Trustee Elson made a motion to pay bills. Trustee Slack seconded the motion. Motion carried.
All bills presented were deemed to be valid expenditures and were to be paid as presented.
The next monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday, March 11, 2025 at 6:00 pm.
Meeting adjourned at 7:32 p.m.
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