City Council passes ordinance to help school district

COSHOCTON – Coshocton City Schools Board member Steve Clark was at Coshocton City Council’s May 9 meeting to address any questions regarding a request from the school district.

The district needs to install an antenna used for communication purposes on the city’s water tower on State Route 541.

“We’ve had our equipment on a Time Warner tower for 17 years and they’ve been very generous to us, but need us to take it off there,” Clark said. “Our concern is for the safety of our children. Without your tower we will have trouble communicating with busses in the Morgan Run Road and upper Chestnut Street area. We don’t want to risk something happening and not being able to communicate with them.”

Mayor Steve Mercer said the city’s utilities department director made some revisions to the contract allowing this antenna to be placed on the water tower and felt comfortable with the changes. He encouraged council to suspend its rules and go ahead and give this ordinance a third reading at the meeting. The second and third reading of the ordinance received unanimous yes votes and it passed.

Council also amended and passed an ordinance establishing an hourly rate of pay for the new property code investigator position that is being created.

The position was changed from salary to hourly and would make $19.80 an hour and roughly $24,700 a year. The person’s schedule would be flexible, but they would not be eligible for sick time or vacation days.

“He (or she) would be out in the community and not just acting on complaints that are turned in,” said Service Director Jerry Stenner. “We really want to start being more proactive.”

Councilman Roger Moore believes there is a possibility that the position could even help pay for itself because the person would be out in the community and able to keep an eye on contractors, the work they are doing, who is working for them and if they have the proper permits.

Councilmen Jim Baker and Bob Fetters expressed some opposition to the position, but the ordinance ended up passing.

Stenner also noted during the meeting that the city is addressing concerns from citizens about the transition to Kimble for trash pickup. City officials recently met with Kimble representatives and Stenner feels they have made progress with issues that have been brought up.

“They are figuring out what is best for them and what is best for your citizens,” Stenner said.

Category: Government