By Martha Jacob
The December 12 village council meeting in Fayetteville included lots of changes for 2020.
First on the list of events, Mayor Randy Carson presided over his final council meeting since he did not run again in November and his term expires Dec. 31. The new mayor, Tina Houk, will take over in January.
Two of the village council members, Jody Edwards and long time councilman Edward Coleman both will leave their seats Dec. 31. They are being replaced by Wendy Evans and Jeff Bilzing.
One of the first actions that council took was to remove Councilmember Gina Hayes from her seat because of a lack of attendance at council meetings.
So the first order of business January 8, 2020 for the newly seated council, will be to find a replacement for Hayes’ vacated seat.
In other business, council talked briefly about the military banners that were supposed to come down in November. Since Houk has been in charge of the banner program from its very beginning, she will handle it when she takes office.
Mayor Carson took the opportunity to swear-in a new part-time officer, Officer Dustin Edwards. The Fayetteville Police Department now has 6 part-time officers and the chief.
Later in the meeting council voted to extend the 475 hours of protection plan in the village.
Councilman Ed Coleman reported to council that the village park had been winterized for the winter and that strong winds had caused a limb to fall across the trail but had been cleaned up.
Police Chief Chad Essert reported that his department had issued 67 citations, 51 individuals had been sited and 39 warnings were issued. It had 6 minor misdemeanor arrests and one felony arrest and one felony F1 warrants from Hamilton County for manufacturing drugs.
In other actions taken at the council meeting council approved a 50 cent per hour raise for the police department which is just a little under $300 added to the village monthly budget. That increase would place supervisors at $12.50 per hour and officers at $11.75 per hour. The changes will begin in January, 2020.
Council also discussed providing direct deposit for its employees and Chief Essert talked about phase two on street repairs. He said he had only received one returned estimate out of the four businesses who looked at the street project. Tina Houk provided a business card from another business for an estimate.
Essert described phase two to council as including the east side of Lindsey Drive – installing an eight inch culvert, tie it in with the catch basin, cut and define a swale, import some topsoil, fill low areas and grades and straw.
“The village is responsible for this,” Essert said. “Then on the left side of Lindsey, we need to wash out the existing culvert, put in a two by two catch basin, install a French drain, import topsoil. fill low areas and grade, clean up the ditches and run a culvert out into the field, all for a cost of $3,600.
Councilman Huber suggested several alternate plans that could possibly save money for the village.
Essert and Huber talked at length about other options for the village. Funding for phase two is already in place.
As interim village administrator, Chief Essert reported that James Campbell had applied for the village maintenance worker position.
“We ran a background check on Mr. Campbell and there were no issues,” Essert explained. “I move that we offer him the position pending a drug test. He was okay with the rate of pay and ready to go to work.”
Councilman Edward described Mr. Campbell as hard working and mechanically inclined which is what the village needs. Campbell was approved by council for the job.
Council also discussed providing individual meters at the strip mall in Fayetteville.
