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FINAL REVIEW … Members of the Fayette Village Council go over the minutes of the previous Council meeting. (PHOTO BY TIMOTHY KAYS)
By: Timothy Kays
Members of the Fayette Village Council convened in regular session on the evening of August 26. Prior to beginning the business portion of the agenda for the evening, Council heard from German Township Trustee, Joe Short. A former Fulton County Commissioner, Short has thrown his hat in the ring to run for the seat of Commissioner Bill Rufenacht who has opted to not run again.
The report to Council from Village Administrator Genna Biddix began with information on the Ohio Water Development Agency (OWDA) Public Works truck loan application that appeared later on the agenda.
“I have been working with Roberta Streiffert from GLCAP (Great Lakes Community Action Partnership) to get our truck loan application prepared for the OWDA September board meeting,” she said. “You have legislation in front of you this evening authorizing the loan and the purchase of the truck. Mr. Thompson has reviewed the legislation and the accompanying cooperative agreement.”
“The cooperative agreement references a loan term sheet which will not provided to us until after the loan decision has been made. So essentially, if you pass the legislation tonight, you are agreeing to terms before we have seen them.
Mr. Thompson has some concerns regarding this issue because it opens us up to liability to a potential change in terms after we have committed to the loan.”
“We have several OWDA loans on our books already, so I’m not particularly concerned that we will run into any issues but I wanted to make sure you all knew of the potential risk since it’s Mr. Thompson’s job to notify us of these types of things.”
“We had the same problem with the last OWDA loan we did for the KP building and we didn’t have any issues with that loan in the end.”
“This is their standard operating procedure,” said Village Solicitor Tom Thompson. “They like to have all their documents signed and sent back to them, and then they’ll tell you what the terms are.”
“For any of you that are not on Public Works,” Ms. Biddix added, “…the best case scenario rate is half a percent for the hardship rate, which we should qualify for. The worst case scenario rate is 1.92%, and Public Works has agreed that even at that cost, it’s still a viable option for us to move forward with it. We actually wanted a shorter term than 10 years, but they don’t really allow a shorter term than 10 years on this particular type of loan.”
“So I think the only other adverse thing that could happen to us during this is that they shorten the loan term on us. We wanted that anyway, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t foresee them lengthening it either.”
Council later moved to suspend the rules of reading and adopted the ODWA resolution. Ms. Biddix then reported on the CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund Local Government Assistance Program.
“I have spent quite a bit of time this week actively gathering estimates for the larger projects we are pursuing for the Coronavirus Local Government Assistance funds we have received,” she said. “I have received estimates for network capable laptops for remote work.”
“We are waiting to receive an estimate for touchless lobby doors, and waiting on options and pricing for setting up an online utility bill payment portal. These items are just a few of things we are looking into, but there is likely more to come. We are in good shape to meet all the upcoming deadlines for this, but I will keep you all posted as we move along.”
Ms. Biddix reported on the insurance claims arising from the August 14 severe thunderstorms, saying, “We have started the insurance claim process for two different damage claims that occurred during the storms that came though on August 14.”
“A tree fell on the Park garage where we store the drag and other miscellaneous cold storage items, and it shifted the building slightly on the block foundation. We are waiting on an adjuster to come out and inspect the damage. That is a building that’s covered on our insurance policy. I wasn’t even sure that it was, but it’s on there.”
“We have also taken one of the police cruisers to Auto Images for a hail damage estimate resulting from the same storm,” Biddix continued. “The good news is that even though we have two separate claims we will only pay one deductible, the higher of the two, which is $1,000 for a property damage claim. They are waiving the $250 auto damage claim.”
Biddix then asked Council to review the draft for the proposed Fayette Employee Handbook, saying, “Mr. Thompson has completed the review of the employee handbook and has provided us with several comments that need to be addressed.”
“I emailed you all the revisions on Monday evening asking that you review Mr. Thompson’s comments and return them to us so that we can compile them and comment back to Tom.”
“I know this will be an undertaking for you all but I would like to have those comments back within the next month, around the end of September, so that Tom can make his final revisions and we can finally wrap up this three year-plus long project.”
Thompson added, “One of the big issues…that I saw was, there’s just a lot of different terminology, and it’s not consistent throughout the document. So looking at it and making sure that if you’re calling somebody a department head, that you refer to them as a department head throughout the document, rather than supervisor, manager, all the other terms that are in there.”
“And then one of the things that I found just odd was that there was about half the definition section that appeared to be missing. So take a look at that and make sure that that was intended.”
Council agreed to the payment of bills in the amount of $32,545.41. In other actions, Council heard the first reading of two financial measures. The first measure, Ordinance 2020-07, provides for supplemental appropriations, while the second, Ordinance 2020-08, increases estimated revenues.