NEWS RELEASE

DEFIANCE COUNTY COMMISSIONERS

THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2012

The Board of Defiance County Commissioners met in regular session at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 12, 2012 in the Conference Room in the Commissioners Office at 500 Court Street, Suite A, Defiance, Ohio 43512. Chairman Thomas L. Kime called the meeting to order. Also present were Commissioners Otto L. Nicely and James E. Harris, Jr., Laura Howell, Administrator, Stephanie Metz, Clerk, and Lanie Miller, Deputy Clerk.

The Commissioners met in General Session and approved and signed various resolutions, contracts and documents. The Commissioners also reviewed the calendar of events and discussed upcoming meetings.

Based on the recommendation of Defiance County Engineer Warren Schlatter, the Commissioners awarded the 2012 Miscellaneous Concrete to all bidders, Center Concrete, Inc. and Baker-Shindler, so that material can be obtained from the most geographically/economically advantageous supplier.

Laura Howell, Administrator, met with the Board to provide her weekly update with various department and project updates. Paula Fairchild, Defiance County Public Safety Services, reported that 33 volunteers attended the Spring Quarterly Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training. Medical Reserve Corp Instructors were Karen Weaver & Diane Simon who covered CERT Manual Units 3 & 4 “Disaster Medical Operations”. Topics included: Public Health Considerations, Functions of Disaster Medical Operations, Conducting Head to Toe Assessments, Treating Burns, Fractures, Sprains and Strains, Heat and Cold related Injuries/Bites and Stings, Treating Life-Threatening Conditions, Triage.

Rob Bailey,III, Defiance County Treasurer, Amy Galbraith, Defiance County Clerk of Courts, and Tim Houck, Defiance County Landfill Director, met with the Commissioners for the 2012 First Quarter Investment Advisory Meeting. Debbie Newman, Productive Capital Management, Inc. was in attendance to provide an investment update to the Board. Debbie informed the Board that we continue to see improvement in the job market over the past quarter. The current unemployment rate has dropped down to 8.2% after remaining at around 9% for all of 2011. Job growth has finally shown some life in the past quarter adding an average of 200,000 jobs per month. The nation continues to have 12.7 million people unemployed but a great improvement from March of 2011 at 14.1 million. Ohio's unemployment rate has done better than the national average for the past year and is currently at 7.6%. Ohio actually had the largest job growth in the nation in February adding about 28,000 jobs. The U-6 rate which includes the underemployed and discouraged workers has dropped from 15.7% in March of 2011 to 14.5% in March of 2012. Defiance County is currently at 8.9% through February. The Defiance County Investment Portfolio, Landfill Closure Portfolio and Post Closure Portfolio were approved.

The Commissioners recently received the March 2012 Monthly Activity Report from Amy Galbraith, Defiance County Clerk of Courts. There was $14,706.49 collected in legal, $23,004.50 in title, $414,770.77 in sales or use and dealers’ tax, and $3,346.25 in watercraft tax. There was $89,156.09 deposited in legal and $456,062.83 in title. There were 1,862 titles issued, 466 notation of liens and 559 inspections.

Release Approved: ____________________________________________________

Thomas L. Kime, Defiance County Commissioner