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Shadyside clears air over village chair controversy

Council also votes to put three levies on the ballot

T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Shadyside Mayor Robert Newhart reads three resolutions turning over three separate levies to the Belmont County Board of Elections to be on the ballot for the upcoming Nov. 4 election.

SHADYSIDE — After a clash over village-owned tables and chairs at a previous council meeting, Law Director Kelly Kotur created a resolution to formalize the policy on lending those items.

Councilman Mike Meintel and former council member Nick Ferrelli, who have both filed to run for mayor in the Nov. 4 election according to the Belmont County Board of Elections, had argued over Meintel’s use of village-owned chairs for a family gathering.

Kotur said the village has a long-standing informal policy of allowing residents and organizations to use tables and chairs that it owns. She added that the resolution presented Monday will formalize the policy.

According to the resolution, residents or community organizations wishing to borrow chairs or tables must contact Mayor Robert Newhart’s office to make a reservation.

It also states that the village bears no liability for the use of said tables or chairs.

Kotur added that the tables and chairs are available free of charge for anyone wanting to borrow for a 24-hour window.

“You could borrow chairs for 24 hours and then just bring them back the next day. But there was some discussion at the last meeting about it being unclear about how that was working. So, I had suggested that maybe we formalize that informal policy, which is what council wanted to do. So then I drew up the resolution,” Kotur said.

The resolution was declared an emergency, waiving the three required public readings, and was unanimously approved.

Council also passed three resolutions following up on previous levy resolutions that were passed and sent to the Belmont County Auditor’s Office to be certified before council needed to pass another resolution turning over the levies to the Belmont County Board of Elections to be on the November ballot.

The first of the three levies is for a 1.9-mill levy, which amounts to $9 for each $100,000 of the county auditor’s assessed value of a property for five years.

Kotur added that the levy won’t be collected until 2027 and is projected to collect $26,244 annually.

The second levy is for 2.5 mills, or $12 for each $100,000 of the county auditor’s assessed value for five years.

Like the 1.9 mil levy, it won’t be collected until 2027.

Kotur said that the levy is projected to annually collect $34,532.

The third levy is for 1.35 mills, or $47 for each $100,000 of the county auditor’s assessed value for five years.

The 2.5- and 1.9-mill levies are renewal levies that will collect money based on previous assessments. The 1.35-mill levy is a replacement levy that will begin to be collected in 2026 and will collect money based on current value assessments.

The levy is projected to collect $99,860 annually.

“The 1.9-mill and the 2.5-mill had already been approved a couple months ago, and they were all set to be turned over to the Board of Elections. Then this 1.35-mill was discussed at the last meeting. And we did the initial resolution, but so how it works is we passed the initial resolution, then the auditor’s office does some figuring and says ‘this is how much money the levy would generate,’ and then we do the second resolution once we have how much it’s going to generate,” Kotur said.

She added that the auditor’s office used to do its estimates within a $1,000 estimate but the state of Ohio recently changed the rules and wants the estimates to be within $100 of what a levy will generate.

“So that’s why we had to redo these two, the 1.9-mill and the 2.5-mill that we had already approved. We just had to do these amended resolutions. So, for example, this amount on the original resolution wasn’t quite exact on the numbers. That’s why we had to redo the new one so all of the numbers should be more exact.”

All three of the resolutions were passed unanimously.

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