Council keeps beer sales measure alive

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Van Wert City Council members aren’t just beating a dead horse when it comes to the request to sell beer at the Van Wert County Regional Airport, they’ve entered it in the Kentucky Derby.

After the Airport Authority board voted 4-2 against allowing the sale of beer on the airport grounds, a reasonable person might have assumed the issue was dead. A couple of Council members, including Judiciary & Annexation Committee Chair Don Farmer, even suggested ways to put the issue to rest, as in rest in peace. Council, though, didn’t pick up on a suggestion to rescind the proposed ordinance while Farmer’s proposed amendment to the legislation to bring it up for a second and final vote Monday – so it could be voted down – drew only anger from Fourth Ward Councilman Stan Agler.

Agler said he felt Farmer was shortcutting proper procedure in the offering of amendments, even though Council President Gary Corcoran confirmed that Farmer was within his rights to offer an amendment to the measure, to which Agler answered: “That’s your opinion.”

That statement came back to haunt Agler, though, when Corcoran, after a long dissertation by Agler on what he felt City Council should be doing, replied with “that’s your opinion”.

In the end, Agler got his wish for a committee-of-the-whole meeting on the now irrelevant legislation, set for 6 p.m. Monday, March 14, when Council will discuss Farmer’s proposed amendment.

As part of action on the legislation, Council members took a non-binding advisory vote on the measure’s second reading Monday, which came out 4-3 in favor of measure. That’s down from the advisory vote on first reading during the previous meeting, which was 6-1 in favor. The difference was the measure then had a purpose, which is not the case, at this point, unless the Airport Authority has a change of heart regarding the beer sales issue.

As of now, the Airport Authority decision means that this year’s Wheels-N-Wings festival will be “dry”, although organizers of the event haven’t yet decided what to do about whether to continue with plans to have a band perform, since a band was supposed to play in conjunction with a beer concession that is now apparently not possible.

The Airport board’s decision defeating the beer sales request came as a surprise to the board’s chair, County Commissioner Clair Dudgeon, who said he thought action by city officials taken after the airport board’s first, inconclusive, vote on the beer concession answered other board members’ stated concerns about liability insurance coverage for the alcohol sales and the fact that the Airport Authority was being asked to obtain a temporary liquor license for the event (see an editorial on this issue on the Opinion Page).

In other action, City Council moved forward on the 2011 permanent appropriations measure, while also taking steps to allow city participation in the Community Housing Improvement Program (CHIP) grant for 2011.

The CHIP grant action followed a meeting prior to the regular Council meeting on that issue with program administrator Phil Snyder.

During Monday’s regular Council meeting, City Auditor Martha Balyeat talked about possible decreases in revenues – mostly from funding that comes from the state, such as Local Government Funds and from money paid out as part of the phasing out of personal property taxes in Ohio.

City Law Director Greg Unterbrink also gave his legal opinion on a local Internet café business, stating courts have decided at this point that such businesses are legal, since a product is sold and those who patronize the café do not have to play the games offered that some have felt constitute gambling.