Community

Village council voted unanimously to hire McTrustry, who’s first official day will be Oct. 1. After the meeting McTrustry said he will continue to serve as the pastor at the church on Sundays and for some other duties such as funerals until the end of the year. He will be spending time at the village hall offices on week days after he officially begins.

Those attending village council applauded the move after council unanimously voted to approve the emergency resolution to name McTrustry to the position, which will pay $65,000 plus benefits.

The village began the search for the new village manager following the resignation of Pete Monteleone on March 15, when he announced he was leaving for a job in Virginia. Fiscal Officer Tracy Spratt filled in as interim village manager while the search was conducted.

Council had a special meeting on Sept. 3, where they invited McTrustry into an executive session for personnel presumably to make their final decision or at least iron out the details of the contract with McTrustry.

Besides his theology degrees, McTrustry studied civil engineering at both Queen’s University in Belfast and the University of London and has worked as an engineer before becoming a minister. He also serves as a member of the East Palestine Volunteer Fire Department.

In other matters before village council:

— Council had a second reading on the ordinance that will raise the base water rate for village customers. The increase will result in a base rate of $16.78 for the first 1,000 gallons of water used per month and $3.22 on any amount in excess of the 1,000 gallons used.

— Council approved an emergency resolution to issue special assessment on property taxes for those properties that were cleaned up by the village and those with past due water and sewer bills. The village is hoping to recoup $4,244 total from 17 properties cleaned up and nearly $3,100 in delinquent utility bills.

djohnson@mojonews.com

Councilman D.J. Yokley told council last week that the chamber received a $500 donation from CCH Environmental, also known as the Tri-County Solid Waste District, for more cameras.

The first two security cameras were installed last summer, although they were not operational right away due to a few technological difficulties, Yokley said.

Yokley said those problems have been corrected and the cameras are serving the village well, and in fact were helpful with a recent traffic crash, since the police department was able to go back and review the footage to see exactly what happened.

The cameras are not geared toward traffic enforcement, but to monitor activity along North Market Street to keep businesses safe.

Last year the chamber provided a $2,000 donation to the village to help pay for the first of the cameras, and Yokley said the chamber is looking into donating more.

In other business, council approved appointing a new member to the village’s park board, and a new member to the planning commission following a more than half-hour executive session.

Council unanimously approved Jessica Conard for the park board and Karen King for the planning commission. The women will replace Marge Slavik and Shirley Gorby, who both recently resigned.

Slavik served on the park board since January of 2017 and Gorby served on the planning commission since the late 1980s.

In her letter of interest to the village, Conard said she wished to serve on the park board because she is “ready to set goals, effectively address them and ultimately take more responsibility for the village.”

Conard has a Master’s degree in Speech Language Pathology from Kent State University and has worked in the medical field for the past 10 years. The is also a registered yoga teacher with the Yoga Alliance.

She lives, works, and owns a small business in East Palestine.

“My children attend school here, and my husband and I would have it no other way. I am gladly invested in our future and our youth at the First Church of Christ as well as a recent member and newly elected treasurer of the East Palestine Youth Sports Association board,” she wrote.

She added that she has experience in finance management and marketing through assisting with a family furniture business as well as her own yoga studio.

King said she decided to pursue to the open seat on the planning commission because she cares about the town. King graduated from East Palestine High School and has lived in the village for several years.

She attends most council meetings and wants to be more invested.

Council is expected to vote at its next meeting on Oct. 22.

The village began looking into an expansion of the water facilities after the water crisis in January of 2014, when several waterlines broke as a result of sub-zero temperatures.

Residents were left without fresh water for nearly a week at that time after the village shut down its wells to conserve water.

The village operated on three outdated wells, with a fourth new well drilled that year not producing to capacity.

The Marucci & Gaffney bid proposal includes a new well, water treatment plant roof replacement, and pump house renovation.

The bid was lowest out of the four submitted. Other companies that submitted bids were Stanley Miller Construction Co., Utility Contracting Inc., and SET, Inc.

Three of the total bids came in under the engineer’s original estimate of $1.12 million, with the exception of SET, Inc., which submitted a bid of $1.24 million.

The village will pay for the project with an Ohio Water Supply Revolving Loan Account loan provided by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

The legislation was the only thing before council Monday evening and no other business was conducted.

kwhite@mojonews.com

David Butler, who turns 92 next month, served on the Glenmoor department in the early 1960s up to the 1980s. His first experience with firefighting was for the Navy Seabees in China from 1945-1946.

Butler said firefighting has changed tremendously over the years thanks to new technology and equipment not available back then.

He also said there is a lot more training now.

One thing that has remained the same, however, is the camaraderie among firefighters, he said.

Originally from East Liverpool, Butler moved to East Palestine in 2002.

For his birthday last year, his daughter, Cindy Butler Fletcher, gave him some jigsaw puzzles, which he began piecing together at alarming speed.

Fletcher turned to Facebook after her father breezed through those puzzles to see if anyone had any puzzles for him to complete.

His skill at the hobby quickly turned into an international sensation, with people from all over the world sending jigsaw puzzles in to be completed.

He just recently completed a 2,000-piece puzzle of a place in Italy that took about 10 days to finish.

“This one was a struggle … you can’t work on it all the time, you can come back. You have your life to live, you just can’t live on that puzzle,” he said.

Generally, he can complete a 1,000-piece puzzle in two days.

As Butler’s puzzles became more popular, people began to offer money for the puzzles to hang as art. Butler and Fletcher have taken that money and donated it to local causes, like the emergency kits for the East Palestine school district, and now the fire department.

Fletcher is also a retired firefighter from Anadarko department in Oklahoma.

“No strangers to the fire service, David and Cindy are well aware that frequent exposure to carcinogens when fighting fire that may then sit around contaminating their gear and equipment has led to a higher rate of cancer within the fire service,” East Palestine Fire Chief Josh Brown said.

The department was able to take their $500 donation and purchase two flame and heat resistant Nomex hoods for each firefighter on the department.

Brown said that with the hoods currently in use, the purchase of the additional hoods will help enhance a department cancer prevention program.

He explained that in addition to gross decontamination by hosing off equipment before returning to the station after an alarm, firefighters will conduct a gear exchange with Nomex hoods and gloves. Contaminated hoods and gloves will be placed in a sealed bin and firefighters will take a clean hood and pair of gloves from an additional sealed bin. After returning to the station all equipment will then be thoroughly cleaned and decontaminated before being returned to service, he said.

kwhite@mojonews.com