ARCANUM — The Arcanum Village Council met Tuesday evening to discuss nuisance orders, the 2021 budget, and the Clean Ohio grant that the town was recently awarded.
The meeting began with comments from the public. One resident appeared before the council to request an extra month to improve his property maintenance before the town takes legal action. Though council passed a motion granting the resident an extra month, he was reminded that the new nuisance order enables the village to seek legal recourse should he not abide by the standards.
Village Administrator Bill Kessler told council that there are currently 11 violations of the nuisance order in the town, and that he is working to resolve matters amicably. The town does not wish to take legal action against anyone, but in certain cases, legal action is the only thing that will push residents to fix property issues.
Taylor Somers, chair of the Finance and Audit Committee, noted that the committee agreed unanimously to adopt the current outline of the 2021 town budget. Somers stated that the budget is balanced, and projects a revenue of around $6.4 million and expenses of around $5.7 million, carrying around $700,000 into 2022. Council noted that the budget is ahead of schedule, and that they hope to approve the new budget sometime before the end of November.
“I want to commend the finance committee for this budget,” noted Arcanum Mayor Bonnie Millard. “Toni Stanley (Village Fiscal Officer) put a ton of hours into this and generated an enormous amount of reports for the committee to make it very clear on what they needed to do, so I just want to say thank you, and that we all appreciate it.”
Moving forward, Bill Kessler notified the council, to a loud applause, that the $1.4 million Clean Ohio grant was approved on Nov. 5. In addition to this grant, the town believes they will receive another $400,000 from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR). The town plans to use this money on a number of major projects centered around Ivester Park and the community swimming pool. Primarily, the goal is to extend Ivester Park across Painter’s Creek and connect the new trails to the greater Darke County parks paths throughout the county. Also, the village plans to build a new road that crosses the Painter’s Creek bridge near the swimming pool parking lot. Kessler noted that the development of a new road is something that will take time, but the other work is scheduled to start at the beginning of 2021.
“This is a project that I’ve been working on the past two years,” said Kessler. “All the parts and pieces to it fit for an expansion of the park, connection to the Darke County trails, and a utility easement for a new feed line in for the village. This grant, coupled with the ODNR grant, is going to make sure that the village doesn’t have a lot of out-of-pocket expenses. It works great for residents and it will be an amenity to the town that will hopefully spur economic growth. There are big things happening in Arcanum right now.”
To conclude the meeting, council revisited resolutions authorizing the village fire department to provide service to Van Buren and Twin Townships and the village of Ithaca. They also spoke about resolutions amending the official zoning map of the village, and write-offs for village utilities.
