{"id":47037,"date":"2014-01-02T09:22:15","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T14:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=47037"},"modified":"2014-01-03T08:24:17","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T13:24:17","slug":"new-vw-council-members-will-likely-impact-city-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2014\/01\/02\/new-vw-council-members-will-likely-impact-city-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"New Council members affect city issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"Jerry<\/a>
Jerry Mazur is one of three new Van Wert City Council members to take office in January. Here, Mazur is sworn in by Van Wert Municipal Court Judge Jill Leatherman, while his wife, Sonia, looks on. (VW independent file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The composition of Van Wert City Council will again change significantly this year, with half of that legislative body either deciding not to run for re-election or being defeated in either a primary or general election contest.<\/p>\n

For the sake of continuity, it helps that two incoming members have prior Council experience. New Council President Ken Mengerink served on Council in the 1980s and also has 20 years\u2019 experience as a member of the Van Wert City Board of Education, as well as significant experience as a member of the Vantage Board of Education. Jon Tomlinson also served a two-year term on City Council, but decided not to seek re-election then because he was pursuing his doctorate.<\/p>\n

The other incoming City Council members, Jerry Mazur and Steve Trittschuh, are newcomers to Council. Mazur won a primary battle with first-term Third Ward Councilman Stuart Jewett, while Trittschuh defeated Democrat candidate Jim Hamman to succeed Fourth Ward Councilman Pete Weir, who ran unsuccessfully against Mengerink for the Council president\u2019s seat vacated by Gary Corcoran.<\/p>\n

It will be interesting to see what impact the new City Council make-up will have on issues pending from 2013, including the former Washington school site and the permanent city budget, as well as a possible overture from the Van Wert County Board of Commissioners to combine economic development operations.<\/p>\n

In the past year, City Council and Mayor Don Farmer\u2019s administration have sparred on both the Washington school site and budget issues, but it remains to see whether a new Council will eliminate \u2013 or exacerbate \u2013 last year\u2019s philosophical divide.<\/p>\n

Further negotiations are needed on both the Washington and Franklin school site projects, while it\u2019s likely that more discussion is ahead for the city budget, which needs to be approved in March.<\/p>\n

Committee assignments for the coming year include the following:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Finance \u2013 Joi Mergy (chair), Stan Agler (vice chair), Steve Trittschuh<\/li>\n
  • Health & Safety \u2013 John Marshall (chair), Trittschuh (vice chair), Jerry Mazur<\/li>\n
  • Judiciary & Annexation \u2013 Agler (chair), Mazur (vice chair), Jon Tomlinson<\/li>\n
  • Parks & Recreation \u2013 Brent Crone (chair), Tomlinson (vice chair), Agler<\/li>\n
  • Properties & Equipment \u2013 Mazur (chair), Mergy (vice chair), Marshall<\/li>\n
  • Streets & Alleys \u2013 Trittschuh (chair), Crone (vice chair), Mergy<\/li>\n
  • Water & Sewer \u2013 Tomlinson (chair), Marshall (vice chair), Crone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor The composition of Van Wert City Council will again change significantly this year, with half of that legislative body either deciding not to run for re-election or being defeated in either a primary or general election contest. For the sake of continuity, it helps that two incoming members have prior Council experience. […]<\/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-47037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-27 03:18:28","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\/47037","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=47037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}