Two articles in yesterday's The Review impressed me that there is some fiscal responsibility being exercised by our village officials. The first one was a report on the Finance Committee meeting this past Monday. The second was about the mayor,his trusty sidekick and a couple of councilmen meeting with an official from Marathon-Ashland Petro.
The Finance Committee moved to recommend to council that the flood wall levy be put on the November ballot for replacement and they're hashing over whether to put the fire levy on as either a renewal or replacement. I'm not sure what the difference is between renewal or replacement. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the length of time it is collected. I hope they're not thinking of an increase. With our history of voting for new or increased levies that might kill the fire levy. I surely wouldn't want to see that happen. Oh, I'm sure the Fire Dept. could use more money. I don't know about you but I'm practically living from pay check to pay check and have to scrape to put money into a savings to pay those once a year bills. I would have to think long and hard about voting yes for spending more.
Whether renewal or replacement I highly recommend that we vote in favor of both come November. It's actually cheap insurance for two safety related items that concerns each and every one of us. For those of us who pay real estate taxes either way won't have any increased effect of our yearly bill. We're already paying it. You can see pictures on ORL what it was like without the flood wall.
The meeting with the official from Marathon-Ashland was about fixing a hole on Main Street and the new proposed road for trucks. Marathon-Ashland is in the same neighborhood as the Wellsville Terminals. The hole in the street was probably made possible with the daily passing of tankers and coal buckets. I'm no engineering expert but I doubt if regular traffic would contribute much to the rapid deterioration of the road surface. We have a lot of streets in the village that see no heavy truck traffic that seem to hold up for years. Next up is a meeting with the Wellsville Terminal folks. It heartens me to see that our officials are taking the initiative to go to the source of the problem for help in the cost of repairs. I sincerely hope they continue to actively pursue this with both companies. I doubt if either company would want to see load weight restrictions enacted. I'm sure both companies want to be responsible good neighbors.
Now I got a questions for our legal experts. At the Finance Committee meeting it was brought up about what can be done about collecting unpaid fines handed out in Magistrate Court. How big is the backlog on these? Is this going to be another item like the unpaid water bills? If the fines aren't paid can't a warrant be issued for their arrest? If they can't pay arrest 'em again and let them work off the fines. I have no problem putting the Clean-up Committee out of business with the recalcitrant payers of debt to our village. Like the t.v. detective use to say if they're "gonna do the crime they have to be willing to do the time". Either pay the fine for their misdeeds or work it off at minimum wage rates.
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3 comments:
I really have nothing worthy to add except that by starting the magistrate system, the Village did improve the justice system overall. Say what you will about Tim, he's done a good job, alot of these past fines they're talking about are from before his time i.e. Mayor's Court.
I don't see why the village can't cite people for non-payment of fines. Until the last fiscal emergency, Wellsville was a pay-if-you-want-to kind of town. It didn't matter what it was: water bills, sewage bills, traffic fines--people came to understand that nothing would happen if they didn't pay. That's exactly why the village lost its water system.
For a variety of reasons, certain amounts are always uncollectable (people die, disappear, etc.); still, a municipality must use the law to collect what it is owed. Things are finally looking good in Wellsville, so let's hope city officials don't get lazy and lapse into old habits.
By the way, I haven't read any interesting news out of Wellsville for a long time. Is it really that quiet down there? Or have the reporters gone to sleep?
FYI...if a levy was collecting $50K at present value. If ran as a renewal it would collect the same $50K, however if ran as a replacement it would collect the full value. If your house is worth more you will pay more...not very often does real estate go down in value.
Taxation in Ohio is hard to figure. Taxes are reduced as property values increase. The idea is that no tax that was approved should generate more money than was originally requested. That is why schools are constantly asking for more money.
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