Council Meeting Minutes 2025 06 18

• Mayor Day called the meeting to order at 5:30PM with the Pledge of Allegiance and Prayer.
• Y – Yes, N – No, A – Abstain, Abs – Absent
• Roll Call:

     5 Members Present

Other Village Representatives Present:

• Denise Knecht – Fiscal Officer; Dawn Fitzcharles – Village Administrator; Amanda Knecht – Administrative Assistant

Media Present:

• Cindy Thiel- The Edgerton Earth, Brian Koeller- The Bryan Times, Brianna Balogh- The Village Reporter

Public Present:

• Heidi Meyer, Kim Meyer, Kelly Kunesh, Ed Bohn, Harry Phillips

• Motion to Approve Meeting Minutes from 06.04.25:

Motion PASSES 5-0

Heidi Meyer – AMP Scholarship Award Winner: Harry Phillips is here to present the Lyle B Wright Scholarship for $3,000 to Heidi Meyer, a 2025 graduate of Edgerton High School, on behalf of American Municipal Power. AMP serves in 9 states, 130 members, over 600,000 meters. This initiative is to help keep public power at the forefront because it’s important to have a locally governed utility. These scholarships have contributed to over $600,000 to members. The Lyle B Wright and the Richard H Gorsitch scholarships are named after instrumental members of public power. Requirements are to have a parent that works for the utility, or your household must receive public power.  Congratulations to Heidi on behalf of American Municipal Power.

Ed Bohn: Since Ed’s retirement, he has been interested in working on a couple of projects for the community. Homecoming is coming up, so on Sunday, July 13^th, Ed would like to have a community cleanup day after the downtown paving project to help spruce up downtown. The 2^nd project involves the local Boy Scout Troop 29. 2 Scouts are looking to obtain their Eagle badge, so they are looking for suggestions on projects to complete. Funds will likely have to be raised. 

Mayor Update by Robert Day:

• Attended the Ohio Association of Mayors last week; more details to come

Administrator Update by Dawn Fitzcharles:

• American Red Cross Blood Drive Reminder- Saturday, June 28^th from 9am-2pm; Eric Gruver headed up this event as part of his capstone research project on sickle cell anemia. This condition often requires blood transfusions and Eric aims to address the chronic blood shortages faced by patients with this disease. Eric is currently working his way toward becoming a Physician Assistant.
• 3 status requests for employees as part of the wage & compensation plan; Dakota passed his CDL, Devin and Luke are now Ohio EPA lab certified analysts
• Tree Commission met and approved planting of 56 trees, July 7^th start date
• ODOT- substantial completion date end of next week; once the paving is complete, they will come back in and do the finishing touches for anyone expressing concern; Gerken and ODOT have been exceptional to work with
• Truck Pulls @ Miller Park on Saturday, June 28^th– Crews have been busy prepping for the event and we’ve been discussing Homecoming events coming up in July as well
• If any Council members are interested in being in the parade, please fill out the form and we will get you signed up

Fiscal Officer Update by Denise Knecht:

• Credit Card Review- monthly statement period May 16-June 15 and quarterly April, May & June
• RITA 2024 Cost of Collections – We recently received our annual RITA retainer refund for collections during year 2024 at $24,121. 2024 cost of collections was 1.29%, meaning for every $100 in taxes collected $1.29 went to administrative costs and services. The total 2024 retainer paid out by the Village was $42,404, refunded was $24,121 with the net cost of collections landing at $18,284 for the service RITA provides. The cost of RITA collections over the past 5 years was averaged at 1.41%.
• Resolution 2025-011 passed 6/4/2025, accepting amounts and rates determined by budget commission for 2025 real estate tax collections payable in year 2026, was certified and filed with the Williams County Auditor, Vickie Grimm today 6/18 well before the due date of Oct 1.
• 2006 Fire Levy renewal documents including Resolution of Necessity #2024-006 passed 5/7/2025, Williams County Auditor’s certificate of estimated property tax, $52,251 annual collection was received from Vickie Grimm on 5/16/2025, and Resolution 2025-009 passed on 6/4/2025 was filed with the Board of Elections today, 6/18/2025. The board is scheduled to meet on July 15^th. After that, we will receive the ballot language proof for approval.
• Motion to pay bills 06.18.25:

Motion PASSES 5-0

2025 Supplement: This appropriation is providing for 2 separate projects. The first is for the 32.074 acres approved for purchase on May 21^st, 2025 by Resolution 2025-007. We have been working through the process with the family’s attorney. They have asked for $5,000 earnest money and we now need to appropriate a portion of the funds to make the final purchase of property. The closing is expected for July 18^th. We propose it be purchased through the sewer fund, general fund, and income tax capital outlay. Denise and Dawn have spent some time doing “financial strain testing” with each of the fund balances, all of which far exceed the balances needed. The 2^nd appropriation includes funds to provide for the construction of the Edgerton Community Center Project. January 15, 2025 Council approved for the office to advertise and go out for bid for the Edgerton Community Center. This project was brought before and discussed multiple times at Council and Park Board committee meetings. The Village originally submitted the project to legislature for funding in 2017. Ultimately, there were changes in office and we were not successful in receiving the funding at that point in time. We resubmitted and in July 2024, received notice the Village of Edgerton was approved for funding from the State of Ohio Capital budget in the amount of $425,000 which was receipted in August of 2024. We have expended a portion of the funds for design, bid and advertising expenses, etc. We currently hold $330,211 in that fund. We have a pending grant and grant match total of $150,000 that we have not collected. In our budget we have a total cash match of $129,560, so we are proposing to fund the remaining portion of the project by pledging $220,000 of $309,000 listed from income tax capital fund and $782,229 from the general cash balance fund. The general fund currently holds 3.36 million which far exceeds the necessary amount for this project. We received 5 bids. The lowest and most responsive bid came from the Mel Lanzer Company. Bids were opened on Thursday, June 12^th at 3pm. The scope of the work included general construction for the Community center along with 2 alternates. The patio addition and a family toilet room were the 2 alternates added during plan approval at the request of the State. The total projected population of the inside did not warrant a family bathroom but the patio addition would have to be included in the projected population, even though it was an alternate. Alternate 2 was $26,000, alternate 1 was $77,000 with a base bid of $1,509,000.00.  The amount raised to this point is $575,000 with anticipation of raising more. But what we are asking for now is the appropriations so we can then ask for permission to award the project so they can begin working on the contract documents as well as having the construction started.

VILLAGE OF EDGERTON ORDINANCE NO 1155
AN ORDINANCE PROVIDING FOR A SUPPLEMENT TO THE 2025 ANNUAL APPROPRIATIONS

• Motion to pass and adopt Ordinance No 1155:

Motion PASSES 5-0

Bid Acceptance: We are asking to award to “Mel Lanzer Company” which provided the lowest, most responsive bid with an immediate effective date which we have done with most contracts that are awarded for construction. This allows us to enter into negotiations for the contract as well as getting the company started with construction in a timely manner before the pricing runs out. Also, the current structure should be down by June 30^th. Mayor Day added that this is something we have been working towards, for many, many years and it’s exciting to finally see it coming to fruition.

VILLAGE OF EDGERTON ORDINANCE NO 1156
AN ORDINANCE ACCEPTING THE BID OF “MEL LANZER COMPANY” FOR THE EDGERTON COMMUNITY CENTER PROJECT, AUTHORIZING THE VILLAGE ADMINISTRATOR TO TAKE ALL ACTION NECESSARY TO COMPLETE THE PROGECT AND PROVIDING FOR AN IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVE DATE

• Motion to suspend the rules for Ordinance No 1156:

Motion PASSES 5-0

• Motion to pass and adopt ordinance 1056:

Motion PASSES 5-0

• Motion to adjourn at 6:05PM:

Motion PASSES 5-0