Township Trustees Discuss Pathway Grants and Open Space Levy Renewal

A couple dozen people attended the January 27th Township Trustee meeting where a variety of topics were covered.

Fire Chief Hussey announced that the joint venture between the Village and Township providing an emergency notification system would be activated in the next week to ten days. The system will be used to notify area residents of emergencies through telephone calls to home, business, or cell phones, text messages and emails. Emergencies could include weather-related conditions, natural gas leaks, and power outages. The system has a great deal of flexibility allowing the entire area or portions of the area to be notified. The Chief also discussed various training that members of the fire department would be taking to ensure they continued to be up-to-date on current techniques.

Two different groups were present seeking the assistance of the Township Trustees in arranging for grants to fund portions of potential improvements to the community’s pathway system. Both groups are pursuing funding through ODOT. Township Fiscal Officer Norm Kennedy explained that qualifying for the funding is a two-step process. The first phase is submittal of a letter of interest to ODOT with a general description of the project. Those submittals will be reviewed by ODOT, and if ODOT finds a submittal worthy of further consideration, ODOT will invite the group involved to submit a full application this May. ODOT will then reach a decision by August with project start in the 2013 - 2014 timeframe. If a submittal is selected, then the local community only has to provide twenty percent of the overall project funding.

A group from Kendal asked if the Trustees would sign off on its submittal to ODOT for a pathway allowing access to and from Kendal to the main pathway system. After Norm Kennedy clarified that the Township Trustees would not be providing any part of the twenty percent local match, the Trustees unanimously agreed to sign a letter indicating their support of the project.

John Weigand was present representing Granville Rotary in its project to provide the Raccoon Valley Park Bridge. That bridge would connect the main bike path with the community athletic fields across Raccoon Creek to the south. This has been a long-term Rotary project and Weigand indicated that a couple alternative bridge designs had been considered in an effort to allow construction at as reasonable a cost as possible. Both a truss bridge and a suspension bridge were examined. The suspension bridge would be less expensive, however, a suspension bridge would not be ADA-compliant. The current plan is to build the suspension bridge at a cost of approximately $1.2 million. 

Rotary has agreed to provide up to $150,000 toward the cost of the project, and with the potential for 80% funding through ODOT, it might be possible for the local community to make up the difference. Weigand noted that informal discussions with the Village have indicated that the Village may be able to provide $100,000 from the Village’s pathway reserve fund. While it was clarified that the Township Trustees would not be providing funding for the construction of this bridge, Weigand raised a question of whether or not the Township would take over the maintenance of the bridge once constructed. 

Fred Abraham said he felt it would be beneficial to get one or all of the projects being proposed. The Trustees agreed unanimously to support the effort with their signatures.

The Trustees also discussed open space funding. There are two levies that support Township purchase of open space. One is a 1 mill levy that is not up until 2011. The other, a 2.5 mill levy that is currently collecting at a rate of 2.28 mills on residential and agricultural properties, is up in 2010. A number of people in the audience, including some members of the Township’s Open Space Committee, indicated their support for the purchase of open space. The chair of the Open Space Committee, Doug Wagner, said that the Committee has been receiving a "very positive response" from the public to the open space program. Committee Member Kim Miles pointed out that acquisition of open space is a "now or never" proposition, since when the economy recovers developers will fill whatever space they can. It was generally agreed that many benefits are provided by the acquisition of open space including maintaining local quality of life, protection of the school district from dense housing developments, and protection of residential property values. 

Fred Abraham summarized the thoughts of many when he stated his belief that the acquisition of open space is "a home run all the way." Accordingly the Trustees unanimously agreed to proceed with a plan of placing a renewal of the open space levy on the May ballot. A renewal would mean there would be no increase in taxes. 

As Granville Press readers may remember, during the recent Township Trustee race one of the issues raised by the Mason-Jenks campaign in opposition to then-candidate Dan Van Ness was Van Ness’ lease of a small amount of Township property, as the campaign felt the lease would be a conflict of interest for Van Ness should he become a Township Trustee. During the campaign Van Ness committed to doing whatever the County Prosecutor recommended so that there would not be any conflict of interest. Toward the end of Wednesday’s Township Trustee meeting there ensued a brief discussion between Norm Kennedy and Bill Mason regarding a "Farm Lease Termination Agreement." Kennedy indicated that the County Prosecutor had been working for some time on the question and had come up with a draft agreement to implement the prosecutor’s recommendation to terminate the lease. Bill Mason quickly clarified that Van Ness could certainly hire his own attorney to contest the recommendation; however, Van Ness said that, in accordance with his campaign commitment, he had already signed the agreement and it was ready for the signatures of the other Trustees. Trustees Mason and Abraham then voted unanimously to accept and sign the agreement.

The next regularly scheduled Township Trustee meeting will be February 10, 2010, at 7 pm in the meeting room at McPeek Lodge, 3447 Raccoon Valley Road.