Parkman Township Trustees Joyce Peters and Lance Portman voted Nov. 6 to pay assistant Zoning Inspector Mark Strumbly additional wages for September and October for performing all the zoning inspector’s duties.
Parkman Township Trustees Joyce Peters and Lance Portman voted Nov. 6 to pay assistant Zoning Inspector Mark Strumbly additional wages for September and October for performing all the zoning inspector’s duties.
They also voted to change his status to interim zoning inspector for November and December and increase his part-time pay by $350 per month, said Peters.
Strumbly has been assistant to Zoning Inspector John Spelich for about a year and paid $350 per month in that position, Peters said during a phone interview Nov. 7, adding Spelich is ill.
“It appears Mr. Seplich is not going to be back for at least two months. Mark should be getting primary pay for all the work he’s doing,” Peters said in the trustees meeting.
“(Strumbly’s) covering a lot of ground right now,” Portman added, noting he will receive mileage reimbursement.
Trustee Henry Duchscherer was absent from the meeting.
Early in the meeting, Peters asked Matt Yutzy, of Farmington Road, if there was any news regarding the Amish community’s campaign to find an alternate buggy lane to avoid traveling along busy U.S. Route 422.
Yutzy and a committee of concerned Amish attended the Oct. 21 meeting to ask trustees to intercede on their behalf with law enforcement and the Ohio Department of Transportation.
They voiced concerns about fast-moving traffic and numerous collisions, some fatal, involving horse-drawn buggies at that meeting.
Yutzy, who attended last Tuesday’s meeting with members of the Amish Safety Committee, said they had been hoping for a meeting with ODOT soon.
“Unfortunately, that got postponed until January,” he said. “We’re here to update you with the nothing we have.”
Peters said she was glad the safety committee is involved in the matter and said she would be happy to attend the next ODOT meeting with those involved.
Reconstruction of the second-floor porch on the front of the township community house is in the early phases, said Portman.
Trustees have been discussing replacing the concrete pad at the front of the building for some time. Repairing or replacing the porch above it came up recently.
“We need a structural engineer for the rest of it,” Peters said Friday. “It’s old. We want to make sure it’s safe.”
Trustees are seeking a ballpark figure on the cost, she said.
So far, they have a rough plan for what they want, but need plans and an architect to work with the engineer, Portman said, adding he doesn’t expect much to happen until spring.
The steel stairs at either end of the porch that serve as fire exits are rusty and unsafe, so the upstairs of the community house cannot be used, he said.
The large area can accommodate up to 360 guests and trustees want to rent the space for events, but the stairs must be replaced first, said township Fire Chief Mike Komandt.
Portman said he will contact the Geauga County Building Department to find out if temporary wooden steps would be permitted until the porch is rebuilt.
How much reconstruction will be necessary is still up in the air, Portman said Friday.
“It needs some help,” he said.
