Board of Trustees - Regular Meeting

to our meeting and go ahead and ask for the pledge of allegiance. United States of America to the stands nation.

Okay. May please ask for a roll call. Supervisory present. Epsteust Thompson present. Trusty Jeff presusty present. Madam chair you have six members. Thank you. May I ask for an approval of the agenda? Madam chair move to approve the agenda for March 25th 2026. Second. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed.

All right. The agenda is approved as presented. We'll go ahead and open it up for public comment and board response. Any person may come forward at this time to address the board. Anyone who wishes to speak is requested but not required to state his or her name and address for the record.

Hello, Christina Luronus, 151 East Textile Road. I wanted to talk to you again about um ceasing your actions on this ill-advised tax increment finance authority known as the corridor improvement authority. It's a bad idea. I'm hoping that you will at raise up your heads and and put an end to this. I understand that sometimes you feel like you've started to put one foot in front of the other and this is inevitable or you've been given information by staff and you don't feel that you're knowledgeable enough perhaps to understand what it is and why you shouldn't be doing it. Um you've gotten bad advice and it's not a good plan. This has been tried before in this exact corridor in Pittsfield Township and it was a bad idea then. I do have to pull up my uh all the things that I came to say to that board at that time. Um I'm not sure was anybody here then at the same time. I think the clerk was here right at the very end. Um it would not have been uh Commissioner Trustee Thompson because Trustee Thompson was on the board when I was on the board and in our township up until the time of Supervisor Mandy Greywall, none of these would ever have been done. They were a bad idea financially. It marked almost the beginning of the end of our comfortable time in Pittsfield Township where we really always had more than enough money. Money would go into reserves. I was just stunned at how money just started to bleed away in this township and we we seemed to be constantly broke and then the taxes had to keep being increased and increased and increased in the years that I was on the board, it never we never increased the the total millage rate. In fact, we lowered it twice and we had comfortable reserves.

And then at the time by the time Supervisor Greywall's tenure ended, we had the lowest amount of reserves in our general fund that we have ever had. It was really to a dangerous point. So, you're taking advice from the past and from individuals that worked with the administration in the past. That is bad advice. And I just want to try to help you with this. If there's anything that I can do to help you with this, I live in this township. I don't want to see it keep going down the wrong path financially. I It shouldn't be. This is one of the wealthiest townships in Washington County. When you take a create a tax captured district. It's number one a very expensive process. You have to do quite a few publications. You have a lot of legal involvement. There's typically consultants that you're paying to do magical maps on CAD systems and present them to you. There you you create a board that's called the corridor Improvement Authority. And while the individuals may not be paid, they're typically very very wealthy business owners that are have businesses along the that are going to benefit by stealing money from our our our special voted villages. There is never a a way to take money from a special voted mill like the park village, like the public safety mill, like the library mill that are special voted villages. There's never a way to strip money away from that other than through one of these tax capture districts. And these districts include DDAs. They include um any sort of a TIFFA corridor improvement authorities. I'd say the only instance where it sort of makes sense is in a brownfield redevelopment plan where the the actual

site that's getting redeveloped, you do some tax capture after. but to cut a wide swath down our down state street and and pull away the the incremental increase year over year

and put it into an artificial structure. So before the the before the money even hits the coffer, it's being siphoned off into a separate fund that you're allowed to use only for this secondary intergovernmental entity that is neither elected nor responsible to the people of the township. These are these are individuals that sit on this corridor improvement authority that have no accountability to the people of the township. Please do not do this. you will have you can easily take the exact same amount of money without creating an artificial tax capture district that you're not going to be able to get rid of easily if at all and you're going to put that money into an entity that then spends the so

I don't think I'm being clear but could I just finish by saying please don't do this this is a terrible idea and you could all you need to Just Google tax increment finance opposition and library directors school officials. You'll find it everywhere there. It's a terrible idea. Thank you. All right. I will go ahead and ask for motion to approve the minutes to approve the minutes of the regular meeting held on March 11, 2026. discussion.

Yeah, sure. I would like to make an amendment motion because the minutes would be the second um and I put out the correction on the board so that they can see what I'm saying. But the second sentence um would be revised as followed. Uh the following things would be she will be in contact with residents to see if there is and then added this resction and I would like to make a friendly amendment to motion. All in favor?

I opposed. All right. Motion uh the minutes are approved as amended. All right. Now we get to the good stuff. We get to um the proclamation recognizing 2025 Department of Public Safety Firefighter of the Year. And we're going to call up our chief of fire to present that.

Good evening. Evening.

Whereas each January, members of the public safety department may nominate a police officer and firefighter of the year from their respective groups in recognition of their overall outstanding performance during the prior year. And the awardee must be a peer who has demonstrated an excellent service record over the past year and who is respected by his or her peers for professionalism, commitment to duty, and dedication to serving and protecting the community while also demonstrating the highest level of respect and dignity to all persons. And whereas fire marshal John Daro has been awarded the 2025 firefighter of the year for his leadership and dedication to protecting the community. Fire marshal Daro has been instrumental in enhancing safety throughout the township by building the commu community risk reduction program from the ground up. Through these efforts, Fire Marshall Darl continues to demonstrate the highest level of dedication and leadership, preventing emergencies before they occur, and representing the best qualities of our organization. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Pittsfield Charter Township Board of Trustees hereby express a sincere appreciation to police officer of the year Derek Monoser and firefighter of the year, Fire Marshal John Darl, for their commitment and dedication to the service to the service the citizens of Pittsville Charter Township. Congratulations, John. Everybody kind of come up here. We could bring everybody up.

Would that be okay? Kind of bring everybody here. We can do a picture together as a group. Everybody moving. Why your work is so congratulations Keep it coming. Keep it coming.

Lined up. All right. Thank you. I did forgot to mention that we had um no public comment submitted um online and we'll go ahead and move on to no communications. Ask for a motion for the consent agenda. Madam Chair, I move to approve the consent agenda 7.1 through 7.8. Second. Okay. Any discussion? All in favor? Opposed? All right. The consent agenda is uh motion passes. Um I don't think we have any department reports, so New business may ask for a motion for 9.1. Madam chair, I move to adopt resolution to make appointments to township commiss.

Second. Any discussion on this one? I ask for a roll call, please. Supervisory. Yes. Yes. Treasure. Yes. Trusty Thompson. Yes. Trusty Jeffer. Yes. Trusty Mills. Yes. Thank you. All right, that is resolution is passed. May I ask for a motion for 9.2? Madam Chair, move to approve the first read of ordinance number 343 to amend the field township historic code by revising article one chapter 5 historic district or second.

Any discussion on this? I think the memo kind of explained it pretty well. Okay. Um roll call this one too. Yes. Treasur. Yes. Thompson. Yes. Trusty Jeffer. Yes. Trusty Mills. Yes. Supervisor. Yes. All right. First reading is approved. May I ask for a motion for 9.3? Madam Chair, I move to correct the time on the proposed public hearing notice for the corridor improvement authority to 6:30 to be held on May 13, 2025. 26. 2026. Good catch. Okay. Any discussion?

I I just want to note supervisor that um when the corridor improvement authority came at the last meeting, we had a this oppate.

All right. All in favor? I opposed.

All right. motion that passes. Um, unfinished business, we don't have any. Do we have any liazison or trustee reports? Okay. Um, I just want to say a couple things that, um, when we first started our meetings, we were doing outside reports and presentations from outside companies. Coming up in, uh, the next few months, we're going to have something similar to what we had public safety with report department. So, the building department, um, our community development department, our parks and they'll be coming and kind of giving an overview of what they're doing. Uh I know that a lot of times for we're you know approving purchases for things and things items. This is a good idea to know what's going on. So um for the next few months we're going to have that and then we'll move into our budget the way we did last year as well to give everybody making sure you know what's going on and what we're what we got on the horizon.

Um April 1 is when our rubbish turnover goes. U just so you know there's been a little snafu with picking up of the cans. working that out with the prior company, but the new company is still scheduled to start on April 1st. No, no kidding. And um April 4th is our egg hunt over at Montabella from 11 to noon. So if anyone wants to pass that along to anyone interested on that, um April 10th is our blood drive um from 9 to 2:30 over at our senior center. So all right, then at this point I will go ahead and open up public comment to again any person may come forward at this time to address the board. who wishes to speak is requested and not required just state his or her name and um items for the record. Okay, then I will go ahead and ask for a motion to adjourn.

Second. All in favor? I All right, we are adjourned at 6:46.