{"id":18840,"date":"2012-01-10T07:26:31","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T12:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=18840"},"modified":"2012-01-11T07:36:37","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T12:36:37","slug":"new-council-members-mayor-law-director-take-seats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2012\/01\/10\/new-council-members-mayor-law-director-take-seats\/","title":{"rendered":"City Council welcomes new members"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
New Councilman At-Large Brent Crone (right) is sworn in by Mayor Don Farmer. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Van Wert City Council showed a new face — actually, several of them — when new members took their seats for the first meeting of the new year.<\/p>\n

Only two Council members, First Ward Councilman John Marshall and Council President Gary Corcoran, retained the same seats they had in 2011. While two other members, Stan Agler and Joi Mergy, are still on Council, they have new seats. Agler is now a councilman at-large, while Mergy took the Second Ward seat vacated by Kirby Kelly.<\/p>\n

Other Council members include first-time Council members Stuart Jewett (Third Ward) and Pete Weir (Fourth Ward) and veterans Brent Crone and Jeff Agler (at-large). Don Farmer also returned as mayor after a term out of that position and Law Director John Hatcher also attended his first Council meeting in his new position.<\/p>\n

While the meeting itself was fairly brief, as Council meetings go, a number of committee meetings were scheduled to discuss upcoming street projects and other proposed Council matters.<\/p>\n

Street projects planned for 2012 include replacement of the Wall Street bridge and reconstruction of that street and a reconstruction of West Main Street to be done next year.<\/p>\n

The Finance Committee will also work on 2012 permanent appropriations, and City Auditor Martha Balyeat had some comments on the city\u2019s finances during her report to Council.<\/p>\n

The theme was one that has sounded often during the past couple of years, but it was still a good news-bad news scenario. Balyeat noted that General Fund revenues were again down in 2011, with revenues $92,000 lower than they were in 2010. \u201cOperating revenue-wise, General Fund revenues were basically flat for 2011,\u201d the auditor noted.<\/p>\n

The good news, though, is that city expenses were also $229,000 lower than revenues in 2011, but Balyeat said those numbers would need to be watched in 2012, if the city were to continue to balance its budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeneral Fund revenues actually decreased $300,000 from our tax budget, which is a concern,\u201d Balyeat said, noting a trend in 2011 that showed a 1.7 percent decrease in revenues, while expenses increased by the same percentage. \u201cWe can still support the budget that was passed for 2012, but I think we might need to take a second look at some of the expenses, because we\u2019re just not seeing the increase in revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A city water bill, showing the portion that customers should bring with them when paying in person. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One positive revenue trend, though, was an increase in city income tax revenues, which were up nearly 10 percent in 2011 over the previous year. Other revenues remain down, though, prompting Balyeat\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n

Water and Sewer Committee Chair Brent Crone also voiced a concern during the meeting, noting that many city water and sewer customers are failing to bring the bottom portion of their bills with them when paying in person, causing a wait for some customers, since utility office employees have to manually write out a receipt for anyone who doesn’t bring in the bottom stub, which is meant to be used as a receipt (see photo at right).<\/p>\n

Crone said it’s not unusual for customers to be kept waiting, both at the drive-through window and at the window inside the Municipal Building, because of the extra time needed to make out receipts.<\/p>\n

Economic Development Director Nancy Bowen will be attending the next regular City Council meeting on January 23 to provide an update on the 1,600-acre megasite northeast of the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Van Wert City Council showed a new face — actually, several of them — when new members took their seats for the first meeting of the new year. Only two Council members, First Ward Councilman John Marshall and Council President Gary Corcoran, retained the same seats they had in 2011. While two […]<\/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-18840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-03 07:48:24","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\/18840","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=18840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}