DEFIANCE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2003

NEWS RELEASE

The Board of Defiance County Commissioners met at 8:30 a.m. in the Conference Room of the Board of Defiance County Commissioners, 500 Court Street, Suite A, Defiance, Ohio 43512 on Monday, October 27, 2003. The meeting was called to order by Thomas Kime, Chairman. Present were Commissioners Thomas L. Kime, Otto L. Nicely and Richard L. Cromwell. Also present was Becky Wagner, Administrator, Alison Grimes, Clerk and Joan Brown, Deputy Clerk.

8:30 a.m. Steve Flickinger, from the State Auditor’s Office, met with the Board to answer questions concerning Defiance County’s MR/DD’s request for NOWAC (Northwest Ohio Waiver Administration Council to establish a Medicaid Reserve Fund. NOWAC is a council of governments established to administer residential services of various county boards of mr/dd located in Northwest Ohio. The Board will take his answers under advisement.

Steve also provided information regarding the annual employee banquet.

9:00 a.m. General Session – Commissioners approved and signed various resolutions, contracts and documents, approved several travel requests, reviewed the agenda items and the calendar of events, discussed upcoming meetings and updated information for the calendar of events.

10:00 a.m. Gaylon Davis, County Engineer, and Warren Schlatter, Chief Deputy, met with the Board at this time. First, Warren presented options concerning the installation of tile at the Fairgrounds: new outlet to the south, 900’ of 15” tile; or replacement of tile to the east, 2000’ of 18” tile. There are several issues that need to be resolved and Warren has contacted Russ Herman, County Chief Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, with several questions. Russ is researching the questions and should be responding soon.

Gaylon handed out the weekly ODOT area traffic advisory/construction update. He noted that work on the Bend Road Bridge project is progressing, but slowly. Drilling at the site occurred over the weekend and concrete is being poured today.

The Clinton Street Bridge is nearing completion – Gaylon estimates mid-November.

Work on the KeyBank parking lot has halted as the crew needs 3 consecutive days of warmer weather to complete the work.

10:30 a.m. Morris Murray, Child Support Enforcement Agency Director, met with the Board for a brief update. He distributed a status report for the Board’s review which noted that Child Support’s average caseload is 2,550. As of September, 2003, his office collected $5,847,896.00 for child support in Defiance County. The average collection per case is $234.00. During September, the Child Support office collected $596,972.00 in child support. Currently the Child Support office has 14 full-time staff and 1 part-time.

Morris noted that one of his employees will be moving from full-time to part-time status and another employee is leaving at the end of the year, but the full-time position will be filled internally.

His office is in the process of researching costs for a new phone system for his office. The current system is over 9 years old and is very limited as to what it can perform.

11:00 a.m. Glenn Kuhn and Charlie Beard, representing the YMCA, met with the Board with an update of the Y’s developmental phases. The projects slated for construction during the next phase are a 12,000 square foot gym, a 3,000 square foot youth center and a skateboarding/roller-blading and BMX biking park. The skateboarding park will be fenced in and manned. Mr. Kuhn reviewed membership statistics, noting that the Y has a total of 4,294 members and a total of 3,234 participants.

They hope to be able to finish up their Capital Campaign by the end of the year so construction can begin in early spring. It was noted that economically for Defiance, several part-time jobs will be created by this addition/expansion.

The Board asked for more information regarding the youth program.

1:30 p.m. Greg Reinhart, County Wastewater Operations Director, met with the Commissioners to present a departmental update. He informed the Commissioners that the new blower at the Christi Meadows facility has been purchased and installed at a cost of over $4,000.00.

The pumps and blowers for the Evansport project should be arriving by the beginning of November.

Owners of the Amber Oaks Trailer Park have contracted with Darr’s from Clyde, Ohio to repair or replace the problem areas discovered when the lines were tested.

The Engineer’s office has sent a letter of request to lower the height of 3 manholes within the county so snowplow blades will not catch on them or the snowplow driver does not have to raise the height of the blade when passing over them. The Commissioners will review the areas in question. They asked Mr. Reinhart to research why the manholes were placed at the level they were placed before making a decision.

2:00 p.m. Jerry Richter, Garden Ridge Nursery owner, met with the Board at this time. Greg Reinhart, County Wastewater Operations Director, remained for the meeting. He showed the Board a map/plan of his facility, showing compost sites, run-off areas, lagoons, etc. He had met this morning with the Ohio EPA to review the plan but he noted that this was not the final EPA approved plan.

His facility can only store so many gallons of rainwater/compost run-off. For a short-term solution, he would like to be able to truck approximately 500,000 gallons of water to one of the County’s pump stations.

Long term, Mr. Richter would like a dedicated, two-inch line run to his facility; he would bear the expense of the installation.

The Board requested copies of the water tests that were performed by Ginosko, Inc. The test results will be forwarded to Greg Reinhart for his review and to see if county lines can accept the volume of water. Greg will take a sample of the water at the Garden Ridge Nursery on Wednesday. He will also contact the EPA to see if the County can accept this overflow.

Mr. Richter also noted that he has not received an odor complaint in over four months.

2:45 p.m. Jean Ziegler, County Clerk of Courts, met with the Board regarding the county’s License Bureau. She needs to inform the DMV by this Friday whether the County will take the position of Registrar which would be effective July, 2004. She feels that, if she had to, she could accept the position of Limited Registrar. In this position, her office would be able to sell temporary tags and Jean feels she could find room to provide this service. If the Board refuses the position of Registrar, it would only be for a period of three years and the County could accept the position after that time. Ms. Ziegler would prefer not to take on this additional work at this time and the Board felt that, overall, it would cost the County additional money. Jean left current information for them to review; they will review information from her past meeting regarding this subject and make their decision on Thursday.

Today’s meeting adjourned at 3:10 p.m.

Approved for news release: _____________________________

Thomas L. Kime, Commissioner