Meeting Minutes: February 6, 2018
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS:
Council called to order by Mayor Amy Joseph on
Tuesday, February 6, 2018, at 7:30 pm at the Rockford Village Hall.
Invocation – Jeff Long
Pledge of Allegiance
Those present: Gehle, Young,, Pontsler, Now, Heitkamp
Fox – absent
Also attending: Chief May, Tom Stankard of the Daily Standard, and Srgt Stetler.
Motion Pontsler. Second Gehle to accept the agenda as orders of the day. Now called for the question. Pontsler = y, Gehle = y, Now = y, Young = y, Heitkamp = y. Passed 5 yes.
Motion Gehle. Second Young to accept the minutes from the
January 16, 2018 council meeting as presented. Heitkamp called for the question. Gehle = y, Young = y, Heitkamp = y, Pontsler = y, Now = y. Passed 5 yes.
Visitors to Address Council:
Mayor’s Report and Correspondence:
Community Announcements and events:
Bicentennial Committee Meetings – 1st Monday each month at 7 pm
Bicentennial Committee Fundraiser Auction in April –
** donations being accepted now.
Park Board Meeting – rescheduled to February 15th
Presidents Day – February 19th – Village offices will be closed.
Family Fun Night – March 3rd – Community Building
Parkway Carnival – March 17th – Parkway High School
Duck Races – March 17 – Community Building
Rockford Community Days ~~ Art and Music Festival – June 15 & 16
Village Administrator’s Report – Jeff Long
2018 Goals – Plan of Action
Infrastructure Goals –
Chemical rehabilitation and analysis of South well – approx. cost $12,000
Inspection of 250,000 gallon and the 100,000 gallon water towers – cost apprx $5,000
Wastewater Treatment Plant – Rehab project will enable 400% industry growth and 25-40% residential. Hoping we can do without raising rates.
Eliminate 1/1 in our wastewater collection system.
This should keep us good for the next 30 years.
Blair and Bubba will be gaining more responsibility with WWTP and WTP – will be retiring in 1 – 2 years.
Shanes Park –
Remove and replace existing electric meter service currently to old Shane Hall building.
Demo the Old Shane Hall building
Use Time Warner building for storage.
Clean up trailer park of old buildings and trailers. Turn into green space for park as we plan for future use.
Install and operate a new electronic sigh at Shanes Park – Holly Lane extrance
Hedges park design for Veteran’s Memorial
North of Community building – pond and sledding hill
Streets –
Seal cracks and maintain current streets
Plan the extension of Franklin Street to Buckeye – look for ways to fund. Safe route to school funding a possibility
Program to replace current street lights to LED lighting.
Subdivision Development –
Finish utilities
Develop a marketing plan / signage
Sell 4 lots
Economic Development
Review retention expansion of existing businesses
Develop program to assist and encourage new entrepreneur development
Continue to pursue the development of an industrial park
Review and address empty lots and buildings. Goal to reduce by half.
Community Economic Development –
Review various organizations and boards from which the community benefits by reviewing their goals for the future. This way several organizations may want to work together.
Energize the various organizations and board and develop creative way of capitalizing opportunities they represent.
Provide the conceptual framework and educational assistance that enables our community to do it’s own economic development.
Develop plan to use the WRKD radio station in communicating with residents.
Committee Reports
Finance Committee – Steve Gehle
Motion Young. Second Heitkamp to pay the bills in the amount of
$48,701.93. Now called for the question. Young = y, Heitkamp = y, Now = y, Gehle = y, Pontsler = y. Passed 5 yes.
Motion Pontsler to approve the monthly financial reports –
Cash Summary by Fund, Appropriations report, Revenue Report,
Budget vs Actual activity report and Bank reconciliation. Second Heitkamp. Young called for the question. Pontsler = y, Heitkamp = y, Young= y, Gehle = y, Now = y, Passed 5 yes.
Motion Heitkamp to approve monthly transfers. Second Now. Pontsler called for the question. Heitkamp = y, Now = y, Pontsler = y, Gehle = y, Young = y. Passed 5 yes.
Motion Now to approve supplemental appropriations. Second Heitkamp. Young called for the question. Now = y, Heitkamp = y, Young = y, Gehle = y, Pontsler = y. Passed 5 yes.
WRKD update – The Board has been put in place and is working together to move forward. Letters will be going out to past underwriters to let them know of changes and see if they would be interested in underwriting again. The music has been changed to adult contemporary with some Christian contemporary in the mix. We will be working on the programming and playlists. One request was to bring back the Blue Show. Brad Now may be interested in putting together a Jazz Show. Will be adding more of the Public Service announcements. Will be working with students to get them involved. Right now everything is on a volunteer basis. Looking down the road – once the bills are caught up and we are running smoothly we may look at creating some scholarship opportunities. With that we need to approve the WRKD bylaws to give them a starting point.
Motion Pontsler. Second Gehle. Now called for the question. Pontsler = y, Gehle = y, Now = y, Young = y, Heitkamp = y. Passed 5 yes.
Service Committee: Greg Pontsler
Rec Board goals – Finish Diamond 5 will be used for t-ball and coach pitch.
Stone around outfield diamonds and electric to the new building. Jeff to talk with Rec Board to help with that plan.
Safety Committee: Chris Heitkamp
Snow removal – request maybe start a little earlier in the mornings. We did get more snow than was predicted.
Economic Development Committee: Shane Young
Attending the RADC meetings- request to review the Shanes Crossing restrictions and covenants – review the square footage. Jeff to do some research for the next meeting. Would like to see the new Chamber directories out in local businesses. Yes – have that on the plan. The end of March will be a barn quilt painting class. This is a fundraiser for the Bicentennial. Working on a barn quilt map from Spencerville to Berne.
Public Utilities Committee: Wilbur Fox
Notice of Public Hearings for Rockford’s electric aggregation to be held on
February 26th – 4 pm and 6 pm
Notice of Public Hearings for Rockford’s gas aggregation to be held on
February 26th – 4:30 pm and 6:30 pm
Location the Village Hall – 151 E Columbia St. The public is invited to bring questions to the meetings.
Rules Committee: Brad Now – nothing at this time
Old Business
New Business
Chief May is having problems finding part time patrol officers to work for $11 an hour. He is asking council to raise the pay of the part time police position to $15 per hour.
Motion Gehle. Second Young to increase the hourly pay to $15. Heitkamp called for the question. Gehle = y, Young = y, Heitkamp = y, Now = y, Pontsler = y . Passed 5 yes.
Motion Gehle. Second Heitkamp to rehire former part time officers Stose and Clevenger. Now called for the question. Gehle = y, Heitkamp = y, Now = y, Young = y, Pontsler = y. Passed 5 yes.
___________________________ _____________________________
Mayor Fiscal Officer
Meeting adjourned 8:35 pm
