Tax, council members on Ottoville ballot

By Mike Ford, The Delphos Herald
Published:  Friday, October 30, 2009 (3 months, 1 week ago)
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OTTOVILLE — As in most municipalities, the community here spends much of its efforts on maintenance projects. Paving streets and installing water and sewer lines require both funding and knowledgeable officials to authorize the right projects when needed. Both sets of resources will be on Tuesday’s ballot.
A renewal of a business-related tax and four unopposed village council members will be decided on when voters go to the polls. Fiscal Officer Jeanne Wannemacher said the tax is vital to maintaining the quality of life residents enjoy here.
“This is a renewal of the .30- mil tax on current expenses. It’s a five-year levy that will bring in $18,223 a year. We use it for everything — streets, storm sewers, police, special project capital — pretty much everything but salaries,” she said. “If we didn’t have it, we’d be tightening the budget more. Thank goodness we have an income tax levy in town; otherwise, it would be pretty tough because we’re trying to get state grant money for street projects and, so far, we haven’t been too lucky with that.”
Council members Carl Byrne, Karen Hoersten, Jerold Markward and Timothy Rieger are running unopposed for re-election.
Byrne emphasizes the importance of maintenance projects and more.
“Over the last year, we’ve done the new (housing) additions and a lot of street repairs and water and sewer lines. We just did another Vorst addition and we have more streets to do; some water lines need replaced and we might have more additions,” he said.
Byrne has been a council member for several years and enjoys serving residents.
“I’ve been on council for eight years and I enjoy it. There’s always someone that needs help with something; there’s always something interesting going on,” he added.
Markward lets his participation do most of his “speaking” for him.
“One of our recent accomplishments is that we bought a few pieces of equipment to make village maintenance run smoother,” he said.
Rieger and Hoersten could not be reached for comment as of press time.

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