By GLEN WERLING
No chickens in Ossian. At least not for now.
Ossian Town Council members Josh Barkley, Brad Pursley and Jeff Kemper Monday night decided by consensus not to amend the town’s ordinance disallowing the keeping and harboring of farm animals within the town limits.
The discussion on the matter was brief as there was no one present to support the amendment of the ordinance as there was at the June meeting of the council.
Instead, The Bridges housing addition residents Phil DiNovo, Larry Heckber and Larry Reed spoke against making any amendment to the ordinance.
“Chickens belong on the farm,” Heckber said flatly, adding that he hopes East Mill Street residents Michael and Emily Diss are able to get a place in the country to raise their chickens. The Disses were the couple who brought the amendment request to the council in June after they discovered the town had an ordinance against keeping chickens when their chickens escaped out an open gate in their backyard privacy fence.
Heckber added that recently, while a member of Ossian Revitalization was watering the flower planters downtown, a chicken popped out from behind one of the planters. Sgt. Stephanie Tucker of the Ossian Police Department confirmed that there was, indeed, a chicken “window shopping” downtown recently.
Heckber added that no matter how under control people believe they have their chickens, they can still get out.
DiNovo told the council he was raised on a farm that kept chickens — a lot of them — and no matter how much they tried to control it, the feed for the chickens would attract rodents.
Reed said that he had spoken with a lot of Ossian residents about allowing people to keep chickens in Ossian and none were in support of it. The covenants of The Bridges Neighborhood Association would not permit it anyway, he said, and the restrictions in those covenants would remain in effect for The Bridges even if the council were to amend the ordinance.
Kemper said he had spoken to several people about an amendment allowing chickens and only one person supported amending the ordinance.
In other business, the council members:
• Learned from DiNovo and Heckber that The Bridges fireworks party at Archbold-Wilson Memorial Park July 2 was successful and there were no problems that they were aware of. The council members had not heard of any problems from the big party either. DiNovo said that future plans for the celebration are to add more food trucks and activities for children.
• Approved pay application 3 for API Construction of LaOtto, for the Greenwood Trail reconstruction project. The pay application was for $205,088.99.
• Removed town employees Scott Peterson, Kati Stout and Sarah Moeller from salary probation. As newly hired personnel all three were on a town salary ordinance-mandated probationary salary period. With the removal, Peterson, a utility worker, will see his salary rise to $19 an hour, while utility clerks Moeller and Stout will see their pay rise to $17 an hour and $21 an hour respectively.
• Adopted an additional appropriation freeing up $7,659.62 in encumbered 2021 Ossian Fire Department funds to pay for turnout gear for the department’s firefighters. While the money had been brought forward from last year’s budget, it was never appropriated for a specific expense, so therefore it could not be spent until the council took the legal steps required to appropriate it.
• Received a packet of written information from Fire Chief Ben Fenstermaker in support of his recommendation that the department hire a part-time firefighter who would hold both firefighter and emergency medical certifications. Fenstermaker said that a part-time firefighter is needed because it is becoming more and more difficult to get people who are willing to volunteer for the department and respond on a consistent basis to emergency calls placed to the department. He suggested that the council consider expanding the fire department’s budget by $33,280 to $37,440 for the 2024 budget but he was not looking for a decision on his request Monday night. Rather he wanted the council members to read through the data he supplied to them before making a decision.
• Accepted a statement with compliance with benefits for tax abatement from Melching Machine Inc. The abatement was granted in 2015 for a horizontal CNC mill valued at $504,855. Melching claimed on the statement that it would result in the addition of one employee and the retention of 34 and according to the information on Melching’s statement, the abatement did exactly what they claimed it would.
• Took no action on a new tax abatement request by Energy Control. Because Pursley is an employee of Energy Control he pointed out he was unable to vote on a tax abatement request by his employer. That left only Barkley and Kemper, who did not make a quorum of the council in the absence of council members Jason House and Dennis Ealing. Therefore the matter was tabled until the August meeting of council.
• Learned from Tucker that following testing, only one candidate has qualified for the open position on the police force. That candidate is already academy certified.
• Said little about the direction sought by Tucker regarding a proposed pay matrix for the police department. Tucker is planning the department’s 2023 budget and how that budget will be composed is based upon the salary delivery method that will be adopted by the council, she said. She needs an answer soon, she said. Barkley said that the council will be able to supply an answer in August.
• Denied a sewer bill adjustment for a customer with a leaky toilet because it failed to meet the council’s criteria for an adjustment.
Prior to Monday’s meeting, the council met as the Ossian Redevelopment Commission to receive an update from Wells County Economic Development Executive Director Chad Kline regarding the progress he has made toward in the steps involved with implementing a commercial Tax Increment Financing district for the four-square-block downtown business district.
He recommended including the discussions about a TIF for a potential housing development on the north side of Ossian on Ind. 1 in with the TIF discussion downtown.
Pursley was four square against lumping discussion of the two TIF districts together — even after Kline insisted that the two TIFs would be completely separate enterprises. The council, he said, could still approve one and reject the other.
Pursley said that there way too many questions to be answered about housing TIFs before he would even be comfortable with discussing a specific TIF proposal.
Those questions can only be answered by discussing it, he said. He recommended that the council meet with him and a representative from the financial consulting firm Baker Tilly to discuss the pros and cons of a housing TIF to get Pursley’s — and the council’s — questions answered.
glenw@news-banner.com
