DEFIANCE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 30,
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 Thursday, October 30, 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. 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.
9:25 a.m. Bruce Fortier and Charlotte Williams,
County residents, stopped in to briefly speak to the Commissioners about Garden
Ridge Nursery. They wondered, if
something happened to Mr. Richter and/or the employees, and the business
closed, who would be responsible for clean-up of the facility? They also informed the Board that the Class 4
EPA permit that Mr. Richter applied for was denied.
9:30 a.m. Becky Wagner,
Administrator, presented her weekly update at this time. Becky had Sherry Carnahan, Deputy Clerk, come
in to assist in a presentation concerning imaging for the County. All of the County offices are in dire need of
additional space for document storage and the Commissioner’s office has been
meeting with various companies who offer imaging services to get ideas and
pricing information. By utilizing
imaging, County offices can store documents on various media, instead of
keeping the information in paper form. Amy
Galbraith, from the County Prosecutor’s
office, has also been involved in this process.
Sherry has also been gathering information from various
cellular phone companies to get a better deal in regard to phone service for
county employees who need to utilize cell phones for county business. 49 new phones need to be purchased for various
County employees. Currently, Alltel
appears to be offering the best price and options. However, Centennial, the County’s current
cell phone company, is working to improve or correct the problems the County has
with the cell phones.
Becky then continued with her agenda items. The boilers are up and running at Evergreen
Lane Office Complex. The only remaining
item is to insulate the pipes.
She submitted the minutes from the October 22nd Safety
Committee meeting for the Board’s review.
She noted that Bob Arend, County Computer Consultant, is
requesting authorization to update the intranet system. Total cost for this project is $9,500 and the
money is available in his budget. This
project was planned for a year ago but the costs were too high to implement it
at that time. Becky was asked to see if
Bob had received two quotes or state bid prices for this project before a
decision will be made.
10:30 a.m. David Westrick, County
Sheriff, met with the Board with a
brief update. The Sheriff informed the
Board that he had attended a meeting with the Prosecutor, the Clerk of Courts
and the Common Pleas Judge regarding improving the speed of completing the
paperwork process before sentencing. The
longer a prisoner remains at CCNO while waiting for sentencing, the more it
costs the taxpayer. The average time a
prisoner remains at CCNO while waiting for sentencing is 10 days. Defiance
County’s turnover is 6 days. Those concerned are consciously working to
insure paperwork is processed quickly to keep the time a prisoner spends
waiting for sentencing to a minimum.
11:00 a.m. Liz Keel, from Maumee Valley Planning, met
briefly with the Board to obtain signatures from Tom for a subordination request.
11:15 a.m. Jerry Hayes, Economic Development
Director, along with Jim Stewart and Lynn Bergman, representing Northwest
Ethanol Development, met with the Board to discuss financing sources for the
Mark Township/Northwest Ethanol waterline. They reviewed guidelines for a local economic
development program which will assist in funding the waterline project for the
proposed ethanol plant. The dollar
amount in this program is determined, administered and funded by the Ohio Water
Development Authority. The group
discussed other possible funding sources, the timeline of the project and when
to begin submission of the paperwork for possible funding. Maintenance of the waterline, after
completion, was also discussed. The
Ethanol group will meet with Will Burns of Maumee Valley Planning, who will
assist in compiling the information required for submission of the funding
requests.
John Ferland, representing the Airport Authority, stopped in
at 11:35 a.m. to let the
Board know he heard hunters shooting on Airport property this morning. As this is not allowed, John was given
approval to purchase and post NO HUNTING
signs in the woods around the airport.
Today’s meeting adjourned at 11:45
a.m.
Approved for news release: _____________________________
Thomas
L. Kime, Commissioner