WORTH EXPLORING? … Village Administrator Donna Dettling and Councilor Brad Short discuss the possibility of converting all street lights to LED. (PHOTO BY AMY WENDT, STAFF)
By: Amy Wendt
Archbold Council met on Monday, April 3 with all members present. Before council was Emergency Resolution 2023-17 authorizing the village administrator to enter into a master energy purchase agreement-electric commodity sales with AEP Energy or Dynegy for Archbold’s lighting accounts.
Village Administrator Donna Dettling clarified that the resolution pertains to a “small group of traffic signals and metered street lights” that are not owned by Toledo Edison.
Bob Snavely, a representative from Palmer Energy, was on hand to answer questions from Council.
“The market is higher,” Snavely explained. “I mean if anybody’s been paying attention to the energy market over the last two years, they’ve really started to rise.”
The last rate was .03009 per kilowatt hour. According to Dettling, compared to 2019, the current electric markets are showing a $0.01 to $0.02 increase.
A brief discussion then took place about whether or not all unmetered lights owned by Toledo Edison should be switched over to LED for additional cost savings.
Dettling explained currently, whenever a light stops working, it is replaced by Toledo Edison with an LED.
However, in order for all of those lights to be relamped at once, it would need to be done under a Toledo Edison program at an additional cost.
“They (Toledo Edison) had a program where you could pay a premium and they could come in and relamp them all at the same time, but we would have to pay for that,” explained Dettling.
Councilor Brad Short said, “I’m wondering if we shouldn’t look into how much it would be to change them all.”
Snavely interjected, “We looked at doing this for the City of Toledo. We were the consultant on it and ran the numbers on all their streetlights and everything.”
“The numbers came out that it made sense to replace them as you go versus changing them out.”
“When we did that study, that was several years ago, so I don’t know. The incentive changes with the utility change a lot too.”
“So, I mean if there is an incentive with the utility, maybe it’s worth exploring,” added Snavely.
Upon conclusion of the discussion, Resolution 2023-17 was passed after a suspension of the rules and declared an emergency.
Other items approved in regular business include:
-Council Minutes of March 20, 2023
-Bills & Payroll in the amount of $564,862.77
-Resolution 2023-18 Transferring Funds From the General Fund to the Park Fund and Declaring an Emergency.
Dettling explained that there were some accounting challenges going from the 2022 1.5% tax rate to the 2023 1.8% tax rate and there were limitations with what the accounting software could do.
“There were some disproportionate things that happened with the Park Department,” Dettling offered.
“Because when you understand that 13.8% is what she (Park and Recreation Director, Jen Kidder) gets of the total amount under 1.8% and she used to get 16.67% so that’s a 3% decrease on a number that’s pretty big in January.”
To make the park fund whole it was decided to put a resolution in front of the council authorizing the transfer of those funds.
Councilor Short clarified for those in attendance, “This is money that is owed to them, just so everyone is clear that it’s not extra.”
Other items reviewed by council included:
-Arbor Day Proclamation-April 28, 2023
-Park Board Meeting Packet from March 22, 2023. According to Councilor Chad Kern, the Splash Pad permit has been approved and Park’s and Rec Director Kidder has reached out to a contractor in Toledo.
-Income Tax Receipts March 2023
Dettling shared, “We are behind in income tax right now. Don’t get me wrong, we are collecting .3% but it is earmarked for just police and EMS.”
“So, we’ll be watching it really close and then monitoring expenses if we feel like revenue isn’t going to keep up with what we projected,” Dettling finished.
Before breaking for executive session, Mayor Brad Grime thanked Vaughn Bentz for making the connection between his employer, North American Stamping Group, and the Archbold Community Garden.
The Community Garden was in need of large receptacles for rainwater collection and NASG donated four large totes to the new initiative.
Council then entered executive session and no action was taken. The next Archbold Village Council meeting is slated for Monday, April 17 at 5:30 pm.
Amy can be reached at amy@thevillagereporter.com