{"id":177333,"date":"2024-03-27T03:39:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T08:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=177333"},"modified":"2024-03-28T03:42:05","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T08:42:05","slug":"council-to-consider-fate-of-committees-other-requests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2024\/03\/27\/council-to-consider-fate-of-committees-other-requests\/","title":{"rendered":"Council to consider fate of committees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SCOTT TRUXELL\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the agenda itself was very light, a wide and varied number of topics were covered during Monday night\u2019s lengthy meeting of Van Wert City Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the discussions centered around the future of council committees, a subject that has been broached at previous meetings. At the suggestion of Councilman At-Large Jeff Kallas, an ordinance will be prepared that, if approved, would eliminate council\u2019s seven three-member committees (finance, streets and alleys, judiciary and annexation, properties and equipment, parks and recreation, health service and safety and economic development) and replace them with special committees on an as-needed basis. Those special committees would be dissolved once the task at hand was complete. The vote to prepare the legislation was 5-2. However, it will ultimately take six \u201cyes\u201d votes to change the current committee system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Van Wert City Council committees could become a thing of the past. Council members will consider a change and other requests during the month of April. VW independent file photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow do we change it, what do we do to make it more effective for us?\u201d Kallas said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his report to council, Mayor Ken Markward recommended council members prohibit recreational marijuana dispensaries within the city limits, just as the city previously did with medical marijuana dispensaries. The matter will be discussed during a future meeting. A full story on Markward\u2019s recommendation and the ensuing discussion can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safety-Service Director Jay Fleming asked council to increase water tap fees for new construction from $800 to $1,900 for a 3\/4 inch line and from $1,200 to $2,350 for a 1-inch line. He noted the current rates have been in place for 20 years. Legislation is expected to be introduced at the next council meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fleming also said Police Chief Doug Weigle has requested reducing the minimum age for entry level police officers from 21 to 20, while increasing the upper age limit to 42.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re putting some of these people through the Vantage program, they\u2019re coming out and they\u2019re not 21 yet so they\u2019re not eligible for the test, so we want to reduce the minimum age,\u201d Fleming explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

He also stated the Civil Service Commission will have to agree to the age changes before the matter is considered by city council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council members approved an amendment to a salary ordinance, along with a \u201cthen and now\u201d invoice for $138,840 for a new dump truck for the street department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council will meet at 6:15 p.m. Monday, April 1, to consider a rezoning request along Kear Road, then a special meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. to continue discussion on a possible community pool. Both meetings will take place in Council Chambers on the second floor of the Municipal Building, 515 E. Main St. The next regular meeting of Van Wert City Council will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 10. The meeting was pushed back two days due to the April 8 solar eclipse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCOTT TRUXELL\/independent editor While the agenda itself was very light, a wide and varied number of topics were covered during Monday night\u2019s lengthy meeting of Van Wert City Council. One of the discussions centered around the future of council committees, a subject that has been broached at previous meetings. At the suggestion of Councilman At-Large […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 16:42:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177333"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177409,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177333\/revisions\/177409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}