Montville Trustees, County to Share Care of Township Roads
If the rainy weather patterns hold through the summer and the grass keeps growing, Montville Township residents may get used to seeing Geauga County road crews mowing their berms.
If the rainy weather patterns hold through the summer and the grass keeps growing, Montville Township residents may get used to seeing Geauga County road crews mowing their berms.
Montville Township Trustees recently agreed to have the county keep the grass along township roads cut for about $900 a pass, said Trustee Jim Marsic.
That figure is less than the $1,200 trustees discussed at their May meeting and makes the deal more appealing.
“They charge us by the hour for the operator, the equipment and gas,” he said. “It really isn’t a bad price.”
Another plus is the township roads are in pretty good condition, so Montville’s part-time road employee, Frank Klaus, can concentrate on keeping the gravel roads passable and the cemetery mowed, Marsic said.
Small projects, such as ditch digging, removal of a tree on Hautula Road and patching and crack sealing, will be taken care of road by road, he said.
When road Superintendent Kevin Knife left earlier this year, trustees had to decide if they wanted to fill the position or make other arrangements. Discussions with county Engineer Joe Cattell led trustees to consider hiring the county for some of the work.
Grass is one thing; snow is another. Klaus is the only road employee Montville has and operating a snowplow is often a more-than-full-time job when a blizzard blows into town.
“We’re a little leery of having a part-timer stuck plowing,” Marsic said.
In a few months, trustees will evaluate how the mowing went and see if it is reasonable for the county to plow all the township roads this winter.
“Joe will give us an estimate we can work with. By fall, we’ll decide if we want (the arrangement) to continue,” Marsic said.
Trustees will be kept in the loop as to the county’s activities on township roads, and if residents need a road issue addressed, they can still leave a message on Klaus’s answering machine at the township garage, he said.
Concerns will be passed on to the trustees and the county.
“We’ll try it out for the summer,” Marsic said, adding if the township can save a little money by the end of the year under the agreement, that would be a good thing.
