Election night added a note of tension to the Village Board Meeting as incumbents Mel Thorpe and Scott Updyke waited with bated breath to see if they won the uncontested races for their seats. Despite their clear anxiety* the Village Board persevered and began their meeting promptly at 6pm.
Mayor Truax stated with confidence that he felt tonight's meeting was going to be a 10/10 kind of meeting. With that in mind he got right down to business. The first report was from code enforcement. Local Enforcer, Chuck, was not present, but did send along his report. The report included many enforcements of codes and updates on previous code violations. It was very code-like and enforcement-ish.
The police and justice reports were submitted, but not read aloud in their entirety as neither police nor justice were present. The main take-away here is that the police are out there policing, and the wheels of justice are a-turning. The Village of Andover Police Squad did want everyone to know that overnight parking on village streets is not allowed from November 15th until April 15th. Violators will be ticketed beginning November 15th. The fifteenth of November in the year of our lord 2022 is this coming Tuesday in case you were curious.
The Department of Public Works, aka Tim, was not present to present a report, but we hear things are trucking along. Following all the posts on Facebook you might assume that the Village Board Meeting was jam packed with outraged citizens, but you'd be super incorrect. There were no outraged citizens on the agenda nor in attendance aside from myself and one other attendant. I'm sure they were there in spirit. Trustee Scott Updyke did express that he had heard several concerns from village residents about the solo DPW situation. Apparently, there are several interviews in the coming week with high hopes to rectify the situation in the very near future.
There were a few items in correspondence, like things about flood management and some stuff for the mayor to sign. There was also a request from the school about salt.
A lengthy conversation about trucks and police cars ensued that I totally understood on a deep and meaningful level. From what I gather the Village presently owns a truck and a police car and will be getting replacements for them in the future per the village budget. A letter of intent was approved to be submitted to Maple City.
There will be a public hearing coming up on a tax cap override. The hearing will likely be in January since taxes aren't fun to talk about in December. I'm sure they'll let us know when they set the date.
Mayor Truax accepted a motion to adjourn at 6:26pm EST. This may be the shortest Village Board Meeting I've personally attended. The brevity of the meeting can be credited to the lack of side conversations and short agenda. This meeting was a 9.5/10, and the 0.5-point loss shouldn't be held against Mayor Truax. While the agenda was short, a lot of ground was covered. However, the meeting could have benefited from a little public attendance. Luckily Trustee Updyke came in clutch and expressed his constituents concerns about the DPW, but I was a bit surprised no one else came to do so.
*I'm not entirely sure it was anxiety. I'm not a mind reader.
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