Community

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

Foster organizes the Creepy Hollows Haunted Trail each year, and this year he decided to put all proceeds from the event toward the East Palestine Elementary School’s Scholastic Book Fair.

Foster said that as a kid he always looked forward to his school’s book fair and anticipated what he would be able to buy while browsing through the Scholastic catalog.

When his girlfriend Ashley Koehler, a local Head Start teacher, told him that some elementary students needed money last year to buy books, he helped out on his own then, but decided to help out on a bigger scale this year by getting the community involved.

Foster has already reached out to the school administration and the Parent Teacher Organization, and they are on board.

The fundraiser also has support from area businesses, who are already donating money for the roughly $2,500 needed to make sure each of the nearly 500 preschool through fifth-grade students is able to buy a book during the fair, Foster said.

Once the Haunted Trail located within the East Palestine Park opens to the public the $5 admission price will go back toward a $5 voucher for each student to get a book.

The trail will be open from 8-10 p.m. each Saturday in October beginning on Oct. 6.

The school’s Scholastic Book Fair is scheduled for Oct. 22-26, which means that the first three Haunted Trail nights will raise money for the vouchers.

Foster said he is still looking for additional businesses interested in donating and also looking for anyone who would like to volunteer with the trail.

Those interested should contact him by calling 330-610-2359 or reaching out on the Creepy Hollows Haunted Trail Facebook page. Volunteers meet each night of the trail from 5-7 p.m.

“It’s been a great thing as long as it’s been running,” Foster said of the event that is now in its 11th year.

Before it became an official community event, Foster first began organizing his own haunted trail in his back yard.

Foster said it has been fun to watch people who first volunteered get older and then their own children begin volunteering as well for generational involvement.

Within the last three years the Rotary International has also brought in foreign exchange students to visit the trail at no cost.

“We’ve had kids from all over the world who come through this trail. We’re international now,” he joked.

This year’s trail will be a bit different, and even longer, than before, he added.