{"id":45502,"date":"2013-11-19T09:38:59","date_gmt":"2013-11-19T14:38:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=45502"},"modified":"2013-11-20T09:05:11","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T14:05:11","slug":"council-oks-measures-facilitating-building-purchase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2013\/11\/19\/council-oks-measures-facilitating-building-purchase\/","title":{"rendered":"Council OKs building purchase legislation"},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/b>independent editor<\/i><\/p>\n

Van Wert City Council approved legislation paving the way for the purchase of the former First Financial Bank building on East Main Street to be used as a new Van Wert Municipal Court facility during a special meeting held Monday.<\/p>\n

\"Van<\/a>
Van Wert Municipal Court Judge Jill Leatherman provides details of the proposed purchase of the former First Financial Bank main office, located at 102 E. Main St., for use as a court building. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Following a presentation by Municipal Court Judge Jill Leatherman, Council members unanimously approved measures to allow Mayor Don Farmer to sign a letter of intent to purchase the property, and to also sign a purchase agreement with First Financial Bank, owner of the building.<\/p>\n

Cost of the building would be $1 million, with another $300,00 to $500,000 for renovating the building, including the installation of a new boiler system. Judge Leatherman said a 20-year bond issue would be needed to finance the purchase and renovation, with debt repayment to come from the court\u2019s Special Projects Fund, with no city tax revenues used for the project.<\/p>\n

Following that meeting, City Council\u2019s Finance Committee members met with Police Chief Joel Hammond and Fire Chief Jim Steele to go over 2014 budget projections.<\/p>\n

Both chiefs were defensive about their budget projections, with both noting they have more than a decade of successful budget management.<\/p>\n

City Auditor Martha Balyeat did have some questions about overtime, though, in both departments\u2019 budgets, which the chiefs addressed, although not without some rancor.<\/p>\n

Chief Steele said both he and Chief Hammond try to include contingencies in their budgets to cover unforeseeable circumstances that arise, but also said both chiefs are conservative in their budget estimates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been trying to contain costs like nobody\u2019s business, and that is a good thing, because we want to get the most bang for our buck,\u201d Chief Steele said. \u201cIn my 17 years as chief, I have never run this account into the red.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year the sky is falling and every year we have made it work\u201d the fire chief said of his department\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

Chief Hammond said the contingency budgeting is needed, especially after large investigations such as the double-shooting incident on South Fulton Street this past weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you budget for incidents like last weekend?\u201d the police chief asked.<\/p>\n

Finance Committee Chair Joi Mergy tried to mediate the meeting, noting that, while the chiefs may believe Council is criticizing their budgeting, their interest is more academic, since Council\u2019s membership changes with each election and new members seek information on the city budgeting process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy does this have to be a personal thing?\u201d Mergy asked. \u201cWe\u2019re just trying to do our jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The end product of the often-contentious meeting was a pledge to increase communication between Council and the city\u2019s department heads in connection with the city budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Van Wert City Council approved legislation paving the way for the purchase of the former First Financial Bank building on East Main Street to be used as a new Van Wert Municipal Court facility during a special meeting held Monday. Following a presentation by Municipal Court Judge Jill Leatherman, Council members unanimously […]<\/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-45502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-03 09:45:22","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\/45502","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=45502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}