The Berlin Township Board of Trustees held its first meeting of 2024 on Jan. 8, where it approved the 2024 road improvement program. There are 44.5 miles of road in the township.
A special meeting was held on Jan. 16. “We met in executive session and no decisions were made and no actions were taken,” minutes said.
Cub Scouts attended the Jan. 22 meeting, and trustees answered their questions. One was, did the township have a police department, and the answer was no, but the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office served Berlin. Also, Jerry Valentine was appointed interim zoning inspector.
The Feb. 12 meeting included discussion of a complex case the Board of Zoning Appeals has been involved in, and whether they should invest in a court reporter to transcribe the meetings and hire counsel to attend the BZA hearings. Both were approved in resolutions.
On Feb. 26, the trustees discussed drainage issues in Cheshire. The Delaware County Engineer’s Office did a field investigation, but “the camera showed no concerning issues,” minutes said. Trustees “had a lengthy discussion about how property owners’ water gets into the ditches… it was the township’s responsibility to get the water off the road and into the ditch… the pipes that are currently there are not large enough and will get overloaded at some point.”
It was said the pipes could be made bigger whenever the roundabout project takes place, closing Cheshire Road, which would help Charles and Winter streets as well.
Also discussed was a three-year extension request for the Peachblow Crossing preliminary zoning project. This was due to financing and the need for a lift station. The trustees agreed to a two-year extension.
In addition, Rockford Homes discussed an amendment to the Evans Farm project, which reduced the number of lots from 379 to 350. The trustees approved the applicant’s request to table the amendment to March 11.
Lastly, there was discussion regarding Rumpke recycling frequency, and the trustees said, “when we got into the trash contract, we had to do the same for everyone. We could not do certain things for some people and other things for other people. We went from trash pickup with no recycling to trash pickup with recycling. No vendor would give us a bid on weekly recycling so we picked the company that would do trash every week and recycling every other week. If we go to every week recycling it would cost more and we would penalize those people that do not recycle or have enough trash to fill up one can.”
The trustees are Chair Ron Bullard, Ken O’Brien and Meghan Raehll. Claudia Smith is the fiscal officer. They typically meet at 5:30 p.m. at the Township Hall, 3271 Cheshire Road, Delaware.
Assistant Editor Gary Budzak covers the eastern half of Delaware County and surrounding areas. He may be reached at [email protected].
