Crossville held a rare Monday meeting to kick off August. The meetings are typically held on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month, but this one was moved to accommodate Jeff Vaughan of the Greater Wabash Planning Commission. The grant administrator was there for a public hearing at 6:15pm to go over the village’s attempt to secure an $873,525 grant for sewer improvements, namely to reline 66 manholes and also removal/replacement of five more manholes. Following that 16-minute presentation along with a brief question and answer session, trustees signed off on that resolution to apply for the Community Development Block Grant and signed an administrative contract with GWRPC to facilitate the effort.
Other business Monday night included Trustee Nikki Jacobs handing out a recommended resolution adopting a formal complaint filing and handling policy for the village. The eight-page document outlines a way forward for the village to properly establish a clear, fair, consistent, and documented process for receiving, logging, preserving, Board-reviewing, routing, and responding to complaints. Trustees tabled any action so they could spend time reviewing the document. It’s expected to come up at the next village board meeting.
Also on the agenda Monday night, village leaders were asked to consider changes to the municipality’s franchise agreement with Crossville Communications. The last agreement, a 10-year agreement, was signed in 2022. Since that franchise agreement was signed which included Crossville Communications providing the village with free internet and phone service to the maintenance department for free. Since then, the village moved their phone service to a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).
That move has prompted Chris Birkla, the GM at Crossville Communications to request a revised agreement signaling the company’s intention to no longer provide free services to the village. Trustees tabled the discussion to review the request.
The village set Trick or Treat for Halloween on Saturday, October 31st and agreed to donate $500 for prizes, contests, and supplies for the Trunk or Treat planned for the same day.
The final 20 minutes of the meeting were dedicated to open meeting in which Zack Cotton and Jordan Ambrous took time to address trustees. Richard Cook Jr. also spent some time addressing a matter that came up at the previous meeting which saw residents frustrated with Police Chief Mark Wheeler and surrounded social media.
Basically, my conclusion is your Chief of Police stood up in front of you guys last meeting and lied to your face, made you look like fools and has put the city or the village at legal risk. He stated that he retains everything on that Facebook page. Through the FOIA, it is not retained at all. Well, some of it is. Your clerk had to spend time googling to find out how to get what Facebook retains. But I’m aware of some posts that were made to the page that have been deleted and were not retained. So either the FOIA response did not come back with those or they have never been retained, which means your chief lied to your faces to this board on the record. That’s concerning for you. That should be like five alarm bells going off in your heads.
Cotton discussed his ongoing issue with a neighbor and a mailbox. Village President Rick Kuykendall maintains it’s between the two parties and the postal service.
Another resident took time to address a problem property next door. Kuykendall said he knew the matter had been taken to the village attorney and the police chief.
Ambrous said he wants the village attorney to be present at trustee meetings. He expressed frustration with continuing to bring complaints to the village and being told the matter is with the attorney, but not getting resolution. Trustee Miranda Kuykendall said she would be in favor of having the attorney present.
City employee Derek Spicer expressed his thanks for the WADI collaboration with the village saying the two workers were going back to school and lauded their efforts over the summer. He also briefed trustees on some research he’d done with regards to placing solar panels at the sewer plant.
Leaders recessed into executive session to discuss personnel at 7:06pm.