Dear Editor and Perry Township residents:

Our Perry Township Trustees over the past few months have settled some relatively longstanding matters. The building addition to the township garage is now finished. At the June board meeting, trustee Tom Creachbaum said he wanted to say, “Thank you” to Dickie (trustee Dick Wilson) for the job he’s done on the building. Creachbaum noted that trustee Wilson “did all that himself and the township got a nice building for our tractor and mower.”

Unfortunately, like a typical government project, the building did exceed by about two and a half years the completion estimate discussed the summer of 2016. At that time Wilson said he could get his truck, and once the ground was solid they could probably get it up in a day and save the township a lot of money. The building addition cost of more than $6,000 (by review of my notes) also ran more than three times over the $2,000 construction value listed on the October 2016 building permit.

The Sugar Grove Cemetery confusion about the location of gravesites going back to the 2012 settlement agreement between the church and the township has finally been put to rest. According to our trustees, the township never received the updated map of the cemetery that the church was to provide per the settlement agreement. Because of this the trustees have not been able to determine with certainty some of the plots that are available for sale, a frustrating situation for trustee Creachbaum who oversees Sugar Grove Cemetery and individuals wishing to purchase plots.

At the July meeting, trustee Dusty Smith reported that he talked to assistant prosecuting attorney Dan Drake, who represented the township in the 2012 settlement, about this and that some deeds are written wrong. According to Smith, Drake said that they are trustees of that cemetery and have the right to change the deeds as necessary. Smith said he would probe to make sure nobody is down there, and they can then change and reissue the deeds to reflect what they need to reflect.

At our August meeting, trustee Wilson reported the graveling of a New Martinsburg alley per request of property owner D. Jones has been done. Though approved in June of last year, the work apparently was delayed due to weather and available labor. At the July meeting, Wilson said that he could not find anybody to haul the gravel and so he would do it himself, which he did. Gravel for the project was approved at $561.71.

At our August meeting, the board discussed the payment of repairs to trustee Wilson’s personal equipment that broke while he was using his equipment for township work. This issue was brought up as guest C. Anderson questioned the bill of $262.75 to Advanced Hydraulics that had been approved earlier in the meeting. In response, trustee Wilson said while using his backhoe to move brush on a township lot the neck of his hydraulics broke and he took it to Advanced Hydraulics for repair. After some deliberation the board decided it was cheaper to pay for repairs to trustee Wilson’s equipment instead of renting such equipment for township work.

In July the trustees approved the purchase of a Makita weed eater for $359 and also discussed purchasing an additional Makita weed eater. The weed eaters are used primarily at the cemeteries.

Janet Anderson

Perry Township resident