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February 12, 2008 - Preble County LBRS Project Scheduled to Begin
NOTICE OF APPLICANT’S PUBLIC MEETING FOR OHIO EPA The Preble County Sanitary Landfill has applied to Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) for a Permit to Install (PTI) Modification to the landfill’s existing permit #50-10805. This proposed modification will allow for a vertical expansion for waste placement over the existing Landfill’s footprint. The applicant’s request will add an additional 17 years of life onto the existing permit to give the facility a total of 46 years of life. The Preble County Commissioners will hold a public meeting on the PTI Modification on May 14, 2007 at 9:30 a.m. at the Preble County Commissioners Chambers, Preble County Courthouse, 1st Floor, 101 East Main Street, Eaton, Ohio, 45320. The PTI Application is available for review upon request by contacting Mr. Tom Barnes, Landfill Manager at the Preble County Sanitary Landfill, 4239 U.S. Route 127 South, Eaton, Ohio 45320, telephone (937) 456-2621. All reviews and written comments will be recorded during the review period and answered during the public meeting. All comments and documents made and presented during this public hearing will be recorded and forwarded to Ohio EPA. In addition to attending the public hearing to present comments in person, written comments can be submitted until the close of business on May 13, 2007. Comments may be addressed to Mr. Tom Barnes, Landfill Manager at the Preble County Sanitary Landfill, 4239 U.S. Route 127 South, Eaton, Ohio 45320, telephone (937) 456-2621. I-70/127 Informational Meeting Scheduled The County Commission will host an informational meeting on Wednesday, July 12, 2006 at 7 pm in the National Trail School Cafetorium, 6940 Oxford-Gettysburg Road, New Paris, Ohio. The purpose of the meeting is to present information about how infrastructure for economic development can be funded through a cooperative effort of local governments. The two items that will be focused on are Joint Economic Development Districts (JEDDs) and Tax Incremental Financing (TIFs). There will be people there to present information and answer questions from the Pizzuti Companies, attorneys with the law firm of Bricker and Eckler who specialize in JEDDs and TIFs, Preble County’s bond counsel Peck Shaffer, and Preble County’s financial advisor and underwriter Seasongood & Mayer. The county has also invited the surrounding townships and villages. The public is invited and welcome to attend. If you have any questions please call 456-8143 or email commissioners@prebco.org .
Floodplain Regulations Meeting The Preble County Commissioners will have the final hearing on the a zoning amendment concerning regulations of areas of special flood hazard for Preble County on Wednesday, Feb 1 at 9:30 a.m. in the Commission Chambers in the Preble County Courthouse. This is being considered because Preble County has special flood hazard areas that are subject to periodic inundation which may result in the loss of life and property, in health and safety hazards, in disruption of commerce and governmental services and in extraordinary public expenditures for flood protection and relief, all of which could cause an impairment in the tax base. The County desires to minimize the threat of such damage and to achieve the purposes of promoting the public health, safety and general welfare. Additionally the county desires to protect human life; minimize the money for costly flood control projects; minimize the need for rescue and relief efforts associated with flooding usually at public expense and minimize the disruption of businesses, utilities and infrastructure. The county also would like to ensure that those who occupy the areas of special flood hazard assume responsibility for their actions and that those actions do not adversely impact on the adjacent properties with in and near the flood plain areas. A copy of the amendment may be obtained at the Preble County Building and Zoning office in the courthouse. It may also be viewed on the Preble County Commission website at www.prebco.org under the “news” link . The public is welcome and encouraged to the meeting on Feb 1. If you have any questions please call the Preble County Building and Zoning office at 456-8172 or the Preble County Commission office at 456-8143. 2006 Budget Inside Millage As the County Commission works on the 2006 budget we’ve had much discussion about county finances, where we have been and where we are going. Many issues impact this discussion. The state has control in the most basic sense, because the county can only do what the state legislature allows us to do via the Ohio Revised Code. They can attempt as they did this year to cut the money they give the local governments. They did succeed though in doing away with over five years the $180,000 a year from Personal Property Tax that comes to the county. Now the state has replaced that tax with the Commercial Activity Tax (CAT tax), in many’s opinion an equally onerous tax whose revenue will go to the State rather than the county. The state also has not corrected the problem that allows Ohio, and on a local level Preble County, to lose Sales Tax on titled vehicles bought in Indiana. Indiana changed its law in 2004 to ensure that titled vehicles sold in Indiana paid Indiana Sales tax. So Buckeyes who buy a car in Indiana pay Indiana sales tax and then come home to Ohio and pay the Ohio sales tax above the Indiana sales tax. Ohio has not passed such a law; so Hoosiers and other surrounding states coming to Ohio to buy vehicles pay nothing to Ohio in sales tax and go home and pay their home state sales tax. This problem means an estimated loss of revenue of $35 million in the first three months of 2005 to the state of Ohio. Preble County has made the State aware of this problem on numerous occasions and we will continue to work on this. Unfortunately the boom in sales tax that some expected from the new Wal-Mart development has basically went to fill this sales tax hole. While the state controls many of the funding streams, they also control how much money we spend. The state sets the elected officials salaries. Over the past several years, the county has given the county employees the same rate of increase, as we will continue to do this year. The State also has controls how much the county gets reimbursed for indigent defense (legal defense for the poor, many of whom are caught with drugs on the interstate). That reimbursement rate has been going down steadily, causing the dollars the county has to pay to increase, not to mention that the numbers of cases have been increasing. Over the last couple years you have heard that the county is in a frozen budget. While that was true for the beginning of the year, when the budget was approved, it was far from the truth at the end of the year due to all the additional money that was appropriated (basically taken from the County savings account and put in the county checking account). The extra appropriations rarely came as a surprise; they were expected expenses, such as health insurance or postage, that were cut at the budget hearing in the frozen budget fallacy. In 2005 we have had to appropriate $752,000 additional this way. In 2004-- 877,670 additional; in 2003-- $253,000 additional after the $700,000 mid year budget cut. By the end of each year the county has ended up with a reality budget, because these additional moneys were needed and expected at budget hearing time but not appropriated in order to show a frozen budget at the beginning of the year. This upcoming budget year we are not working under the frozen budget fallacy, but rather we are going to have a reality budget at the beginning of the year. It is this commission’s intent to have the same appropriation at the beginning of 2006 as at the end of 2006. In order to do that we will not be cutting any expense as predictable as health insurance. This commission is working hard at saving money. We have refinanced landfill and fair board bonds saving over $200,000 during the remaining life of the bonds. Instead of paying another $5,000-$10,000 to fix an ailing $25,000 website that was hard to use and impossible to change in most cases, this commission bought $250 in software and fixed it ourselves. Now the commission has complete control of a functional, user-friendly Commission Website www.prebco.org. At the beginning of the year this commission was given Architect’s plans from last year for three projects—moving microfilm to the basement of the courthouse, expanding the extension office into the old health department offices and moving the assistant prosecutor’s office from rented space into the old microfilm office. These plans were very much pie in the sky since the commission and health district renovations cost over a half million dollars leaving only $500,000 in the permanent improvement fund going into 2005 knowing that the courthouse needs a new roof. After receiving no bids on the pared down projects, we regrouped, prioritized the projects, and worked with our very handy maintenance department to start the renovation for Microfilm move. That move was completed in mid-October at a savings of about $25,000 or about half of the estimate in the bid packet. Bev Pierson, Bob Brower, Danny Davis, and Josh Walters are to be commended for their hard work and dedication. They have now moved on to renovating the old microfilm office for the assistant prosecutors. Judge Dues oversaw another low budget renovation in the probate and juvenile court offices, with the blessing of the current commission. Again this started out to be a huge cost as done by an architect, but through his leadership and with the help of the capable courthouse maintenance department, there was a significant cost savings to the county. Other cost savings measures include Bill Withrow’s idea of working with the other county offices to put items like copier maintenance contracts, cell phone service and long distance service on countywide contracts to realize financial and efficiency savings to departments and the county as a whole While this commission is working hard at saving money, the certificated unappropriated fund balance (the county savings account if you will) keeps going down. This balance started 2005 at $1.2 million and it is now at $450,000 and is likely to go down to about $300,000 before the end of the year because of the frozen budget fallacy. The two biggest issues that are costing the county money is the placement of children and indigent defense, both of which are mandated services, have committees looking at ways to reduce these costs. In years past when the county had so much money it gave $1,000,000 to the engineer to pave roads, the county commission removed 0.35 mills of inside millage from the property tax, and reserved it for future use by the county. Because the previous commission worked in the frozen budget fallacy, spending the county reserves the current commission felt it needed to put that reserved millage back on to increase the revenue and passed a resolution to do this on Wed Oct 26. This will amount to about $260,000 and it will cost a $100,000 home just under $10 a year. Having just completed the County Budget hearings, the county will have estimated revenue of $10.2 million in the general fund. This is basically last year’s estimate plus the additional inside millage. The general fund budget requests were about $10.5. The commission made cuts down to $9.95 million, which leaves an unappropriated balance (the savings account if you will) of about $250,000. If you have any comments or questions, please call one of the commissioners, either at the office 456-8143 or at their homes: David Wesler 437-5585 , Bill Withrow, 456-3954 or Jane Marshall 787-4333 The Board of Preble County Commissioners will not be in session on Monday, November 14, 2005. August 29, 2005Preble County receives Community Distress Grant for New ParisFor the second time in two years, and the third time in five years, Preble County is the recipient of a Community Distress grant. This Grant is awarded through the Ohio Small Cities Community Development Block Grant(CDBG). This is administered by the Ohio Department of Development. There were 10 awards of $300,000 each totaling $3 million total throughout the state of Ohio. The 2005 award will be used for the Village of New Paris. In addition to the $300,000 from the Community Distress Grant, the Village will also be using a CDBG Formula grant of $40,000, OPWC (Issue II) grant of $252,000 and $88,200 of their own money. The total project will be $680,200. The project in New Paris will include Street Improvements that consist of 5,600 linear feet of streets repaired and paved; Curb and Sidewalk Improvements consisting of 4,270 linear feet of curb constructed and 2,715 linear feet of sidewalk constructed as well as 11 curb cuts installed; Storm Sewer Improvements that consist of 15 catch basins installed, 4 manholes installed, and 2,475 linear feet of storm sewer installed; and Water System Improvements consisting of 5 water services moved and 5 water valves raised. The Community Distress grant is a competitive grant with the applications being reviewed using the following criteria: community distress, leveraging, program impact and citizen involvement. The Preble County Commissioners would like to thank the Village of New Paris and Kim Keller of the Preble County Commission office for their efforts. Without their dedication, this grant would not have been possible. July 11, 2005Preble County looking at ZEROS systemOn June 15, 2005 the County Commissioners heard a presentation on the Zero-Emission Energy Recycling Oxidation System “ZEROS” by ZEROS Ohio Alliance. Attending that meeting also were landfill staff, building & zoning staff, economic development staff and commission staff. The presentation proposed disposing of an estimated 75 tons of waste per day that currently goes into the Preble County Landfill. The byproducts of the process include electricity, clean water, commercial grade carbon dioxide, and steel ingots with zero-air emissions and zero-discharge. In addition to using the 75 tons of solid waste per day this proposal also included using the leachate at the landfill in this process. The County Commissioners are very interested in looking further at this concept. In order to do that and to ensure community input the Commissioners will soon form a committee. This committee will be charged with looking at ZEROS and helping the Commissioners determine if this is a good fit with Preble County. The hope is that this committee can identify the issues that need to be addressed by the time two ZEROS come on line in Texas and New Mexico in about six months. To learn more about ZEROS go to http://www.zerosusa.com/zerossystem.html . If anyone has any questions or comments please contact any of the commissioners or the commission office at 456-8143 or commissioners@prebco.org . June 6, 2005Bond Refunding Saves over $200,000In the continuing effort to be good stewards of taxpayer money, the Preble County Commissioners earlier this year began looking into refunding (refinancing) two bond issues from 1996. The bonds were originally issued for the purpose of making improvements to the landfill and the fairgrounds. The purpose of the recent bond issue was to take advantage of today’s low interest rates and realize interest savings by refinancing the above mentioned bonds. The county worked with bond underwriters Seasongood and Mayer and bond counsel Peck, Shaffer and Williams in bringing the issue to market. As we all know, markets and interest rates can be quite volatile. Professionals from both firms originally estimated that the refinancing would save the county about $150,000. Of course, actual savings weren’t known until the bonds were sold. The market was monitored as the deal was prepared to be brought to market so that the county had an updated estimate of the savings on an ongoing basis. It is important to note that if the market had moved in such a way that the refinancing would not have resulted in significant savings then the county would simply have decided not to go forward with the deal at no cost to the county. The market was in the county’s favor so refunding bonds in the amount of $3,320,000 were sold on May 18, 2005 (the issue closed June 1, 2005). The County Commission is pleased to report that the savings to the landfill will be $196,378.75. This amount represents cumulative savings in interest cost between today and 2016 when the bonds are paid off. The Preble County Agricultural Society (Fair Board) will realize a savings of $24,855.00. Again this is cumulative savings in interest cost between today and 2016 when the bonds are paid off. The total savings for the two issues is $221,233.75. The Preble County Commissioners would like to thank the following people for their help in this undertaking: Paul Stubbins and Ray Barrish, from Seasongood and Mayer; Abbot Thayer from Peck Shafer and Williams; Hal Yoder, County Auditor, Mindy Robbins, Chief Deputy Auditor; Ken Moreland, County Administrator; and Connie Crowell, Commission Clerk. For More Information Contact:
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