TWINSBURG – A new John Deere 50G compact excavator eventually will join the city’s fleet of service department machinery after its purchase was authorized July 12 by City Council.
It will be purchased through the state’s procurement program and funded by the service department’s capital improvements budget. It will come from Murphy Tractor & Equipment of Canton, with the net price being $56,288 after a $17,500 trade-in allowance.
According to public works director Chris Campbell, the new machine will replace – and the city will trade in – a 1994 excavator “that gets little use and would require a large investment in repairs.”
Council OK’d the purchase with an emergency clause added because Campbell said a delay could result in a 25 percent cost increase and a longer wait time for the new machine to arrive.
In other action, the city’s 2023 tax budget was adopted. Political subdivisions must adopt tax budgets or alternative tax budgets annually so Summit County can set tax rates only for those funds that have a property tax as a source of revenue.
Twinsburg will have three levies on the books in 2023: 2.40 mills for police and fire (generating $1.72 million a year), 0.3 mills for police pensions and 0.3 mills for fire pensions (each generating $216,669).
The tax budget was required to be submitted to the Summit County fiscal office by July 15. It is not an operating budget, work on which Finance Director Sarah Buccigross said will get under way in August.
Council also affirmed the planning commission’s site plan approval of Phase I of a commercial development planned by Holt Orthodontics on a 1.7-acre parcel at Darrow Road and Tinkers Lane/Richner Court.
Three buildings are planned there, with the first to house Holt Orthodontics, which will relocate from the Chicago area.
At Council’s caucus session, environmental committee member Chuck Bonacci reviewed a tour of Waste Management’s recycling center in Akron that the committee and Councilman David Post took recently.
“Recycling is a hugely expensive process,” Bonacci said. “It includes the use of a lot of motorized vehicles such as trucks and front-end loaders, plus sorting and baling equipment.”
Bonacci said the center handles cardboard, certain plastics, paper, glass bottles and aluminum cans, and he said the value of recyclables is fairly high now – unlike a few years ago.
Bonacci said the center does not process plastic bags, which can jam up the sorting machinery, or Styrofoam, small appliances, construction/yard waste and hoses.
He added it is important for residents to keep the various recyclable items separate from each other when placing them in their curbside containers/toters.
Since Councilman and former Council president Sam Scaffide is now serving as acting mayor until the Nov. 8 election, Councilman Scott Barr was elected president and Bill Furey was elected vice president.
Furey announced it is important for residents who are now working from home to check with their employers to make sure income tax money is being directed to Twinsburg and not the community where the business is located.
Barr reported the fire department handled 337 calls for service in June, and the 1,904 calls in the first half of 2022 was up 23 percent from 2021.
In recognition of the 14th anniversary of Officer Josh Miktarian’s death in the line of duty (July 13, 2008), Council observed a moment of silence. “May he rest in peace...always,” said Scaffide.
Council will take a few weeks off for summer break, with its next meeting being Aug. 23.
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