By: Tim Kays
At the January 11 meeting of the Montpelier Village Council, longtime village resident, and former Williams County Sheriff and Commissioner Alan Word addressed Council on a subject that was originally brought forward during the December 28 meeting…village police officers not wearing masks in public places.
At the December meeting, Mr. Bob Dilworth asked Council, “Do you have a mandate or protocol for your police officers as far as wear¬ing a mask?” Coun¬cilor Dan Willis replied, “When they came out with the rules for the mask, I don’t think police officers, while they’re on duty, are supposed to wear any, but I don’t know about the off duty.”
Dilworth continued, “The reason I’m asking this is, I had a situation last week where a friend had fallen. We had to call EMS. EMS wasn’t able to get her up and onto a gurney because of the house. The fire department was called; all the firemen had masks on.”
“I had a mask on; EMS had a mask on. Even the person who had fallen re¬quested I go get her mask out of her car before anybody got there. Your pa-trolman comes in not wearing a mask.”
At the January 11 meeting, Mr. Word addressed Council on the same subject, saying, “My wife and I were at Cookies on Demand one day for lunch…and the Chief and one of the subordinates came in, and weren’t wearing masks. I think somebody from Council said, ‘Well, they don’t wear them because it obscures their vision. Well, you know that people have surgery done on them every day by surgeons.
They wear a mask, and that doesn’t seem to bother anything. But I guess I’ve got a concern from the standpoint of either them contracting, or them passing on COVID.
“I don’t think it looks good,” Mr. Word continued. “The bottom line is, I’m on Wauseon PD, and we have a standing order: we wear masks, and I know other police agencies do too. EMTs wear their masks, I think the Fire Service, I think they wear their masks.”
“But at any rate, I don’t think it looks good. If they’re middle of a gunfight, that’s one thing, but going into a restaurant…I don’t think that looks too good. And, you know, from the Council’s standpoint, if you lose two, three or four officers because they’re off because of COVID, town’s going to have a problem. So I would highly recommend the Council take a step and have the officers start wearing masks.”
Mayor Steve Yagelski told Mr. Word to contact either him or Village Manager Jason Rockey should he continue to observe this situation.
Councilor Melissa Ewers then addressed the issue, saying, “I do agree with Al about the mask situation. I really think that we should implement having our fire department, police department and other departments…we can do the minimum of what’s been asked, I think we need to do more than then the minimum.”
“There are obviously other departments in Wauseon and other areas that are wearing masks, and I hope our department is now doing so, but I think we should require it. At least like if a policeman or woman is coming into the home and the party asked them to wear a mask, I hope that they do have a mask on hand…and respect the person in order to put one because it is a serious issue.”
“I think they need to follow the science and if they’re going into places, show that they are supportive of the science and in protecting our residents.”
Council heard from Brian Fritsch, who is taking the reins of the Montpelier Fire Department in the place of his recently retired father, longtime Chief Dail Fritsch.
“I don’t know if big shoes if that’s the word, or huge, or enormous but yes, a great task ahead of me to carry on,” the new Chief said. “It’s not trying to be my father, or to be the fire chief that he was; I need to be my own person. It’s a great, great responsibility; I’m really looking forward to it.”
“The message that I’ve tried to put out already to the department is that for so many years, we have the fire department and the village relied on relied on Dail to do quite a bit, and he was happy to do that. He loved doing it. That was what he wanted to do. Now with it being truly a volunteer position and me having to work during the day, now it’ll take all of us.”
“It’ll take the entire department to fill the roles that he was providing during the day, especially in that…7:00 to the 3:30 time period. We’ve already started talking about that with my other officers on the department. That’s probably the biggest challenge right now is to get everyone involved, to get that message through that it’s all of us now; it’s not just relying on one person.”
Council heard the first reading of Ordinance 2254, referencing a request for the village to vacate a section of Maple Street between Linden and Delaware Streets. “There’s a street right there that kind of dead ends at the property on Delaware Street,” Mayor Yagelski explained.
“That was an extended street on the map; it never went that far. There’s no utilities there. The utilities basically run north and south, so there’s nothing east and west through there.”
“There’s an individual who wants to vacate the property with the intentions of building a house on one of the empty lots. The adjoining property owners did participate in the Planning and Zoning meeting, and they had no problems whatsoever.”
In other actions, under suspended rules of reading, Council passed Resolution 1302 to advertise for bid and contract for the 2021 Asphalt Program.
“We received word from Gerken Paving,” said Mr. Rockey, “…that they will have a very busy summer this year, and will be running a very large amount of asphalt out of the plant on State Route 15 between here and Pioneer.”
“They suggested that it would be in our best interest to go out for those bids sooner than later so that our mix could be programmed…into their scheduling so whatever contractor is selected to complete that would have a little more leeway for doing that.”
Council approved the Jefferson Township Fire Support contract in the amount of $33,445.10, and under suspended rules adopted measures allowing for amended appropriations, as well as the enacting of the 2020 Codified Ordinances of the village.
Council heard the Montpelier American Legion Post 109 annual report for 2020 from Mr. Bob Wurm, approved the appointments to Council committees, commissions and boards, and unanimously acclaimed Chris Kannel as Council President for 2021.
Council also approved a change order with Vernon Nagle. “This is for Phase One of the Randolph Street Pump Station Rebuild,” said Mr. Rockey. “This is for the sewer line coming from the railroad tracks to the lift station.”
“We’re looking to start construction on Phase B of that very soon, but they did run into some issues with needing to clear a little wider path that was originally bid.”
Tim can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com