By: Rebecca Miller
Williams County Commissioners, Brian Davis, Lew Hilkert and Terry Rummel signed a letter at the Monday, January 25, 2021 Commissioners’ Session, from Judge John T. Stelzer and Judge Karen K. Gallagher announcing that the new Magistrate for the county will be Attorney Tamara Renollet, commending Monday, March 15, 2021.
The letter also requested that health insurance coverage start for her on that date.
The meeting held quite a lot of action as well as discussions and reports, with the commissioners voting to approve:
•Supplemental appropriations on behalf of the Commissioners’ office
•Resolution 44 Entering into User Agreement between WC Recorder and eRecording Partners Network, LLC.
•Resolution 45 Entering into a Professional Service Agreement between WC Hillside Country Living and Plante Moran, PLLC
•Resolution 46 Entering into Engagement Letter with Frost Brown Todd, LLC
•Also signed: Termination of agreement with Infinisource; Credit Card Expenditures for Commissioners’ office for February 2021; Subordination agreement for Kadie N. Costello
•Minutes for January 21, 2021 and bills as submitted
At 10 a.m. a meeting was held for the purpose of the hearing for the Petitioned Fenicle Ditch #742, filed by VonDaile Fenicle on December 14, 2020, for the location, construction and reconstruction of tile. Drainage Engineer Brian Fritsch provided the commissioners with his report and analysis.
Following a lengthy discussion, the commissioners voted to deny the petition and “to encourage Brian to move forward with his recommendations of the repair.”
Following a brief recess, the Commissioners reconvened in regular session to hear an update on the Kunkle Sewer from Todd Roth and Cody Fry from the Engineer’s office. Roth shared some info on Kunkle as well as on Alvordton.
He gave a breakdown of the funding, how the schedule for construction is going, and said they are now just waiting for a signature in order to get started. He shared quite a bit of specific information on the placement of the parts of the project in Kunkle.
Concerning Alvordton and Kunkle, he recommended that they not wait for part of the projects to be done later, but to do it all at once in order to keep the cost down. “We think the right decision is to get it built now,” Roth said.
“It is incorporated into our funding costs so it is not above and beyond what we are looking at in terms of covering the costs.” He explained how MVPO is helping get things all clear with the residents as far as how the funding is done.
A form has been sent to all the homeowners to find out their income levels and Roth said that they are encouraging everybody to fill it out, whether they think they would be eligible or not.
Some discussion covered the benefit of having the Army Corps grants and how hugely helpful that is for both of these projects. Commissioner Rummel thanked them for everything they do and for bringing “this kind of money into Williams County for our residents…and to clean up what has been a problem in Kunkle and Alvordton for quite some time.”
Commissioners Hilkert and Davis added their thanks and encouragement as well.
In another section of that morning, the commissioners met with Jason Rockey and Chris Kannel about land acquisition projects in the Village of Montpelier. Montpelier Village Council member Kannel thanked the commissioners and requested that they approve two Resolutions of Support.
One would be for a piece of property currently owned by RRK Farms to the west of the village, and the RoS would be for a grant application to the Department of Natural Resources for grant funding to acquire the property. He explained that Black Swamp Conservancy has agreed to apply for the grant for the village.
Eventually the village would own the land, and the purpose is for conservation of the land for the use of WC residents. He stated that their hope is that the village would be able in the future “to pull this property into our existing park infrastructure for use by our community and the broader community in Williams County…and even beyond that.” Montpelier Village Manager Jason Rockey said that a “ball park” cost for the property is $500,000.
The other property discussed was a 25 acre piece of land that is also the subject of a separate grant application, and would be owned by Black Swamp Conservancy. Following the explanations and discussions, the commissioners voted to approve:
Resolution 47 Authorizing and Supporting the Village of Montpelier to preserve land in Williams County, and Resolution 48 Authorizing and supporting the Black Swamp Conservancy to preserve land in Williams County.
With no further business for the regular session, but with the acknowledgement that the Board of Commissioners still had three other meetings to attend during the day, President Davis stated that they would adjourn following those meetings, with the Land Bank, Four County Solid Waste District, and Four County Joint Board.
Rebecca can be reached at publisher@thevillagereporter.com