Council rescheduled its regular Oct. 6 business meeting for Saturday morning when illness made it impossible to achieve a quorum the previous Tuesday.

Dague, a 20-year resident of the village, will also have his name on the Nov. 3 ballot for the village council race. Mayor Harold Lee said he'd verified with the Licking County Board of Elections that Dague can still be elected to one of the four available seats vied for by five candidates in November. If he garners sufficient votes, Dague would have the option of taking his own term or of completing the two years remaining of Hicks' term.

The other four candidates running for those seats are incumbents Bob Brown and Karen Holt and challenger Joanie Hammond and Herb Lower.

Council's vote to appoint Dague was unanimous, with only Naomi Compton absent.

Lower also applied for the appointment to Hicks' seat, as well as the position of zoning inspector. At the meeting, he said he would prefer to stand for election to council next month, and the other applicant, Larry Adkins, was named zoning inspector for a four-year term.

Adkins, a St. Albans Township resident who works for AEP, was unanimously approved.

"He does a lot for the community here, anyway," Lee said of Adkins.

In other business, the village forwarded a letter to solicitor Mark Gardner from St. Albans Township requesting the refund of $1,342 in zoning fees to the township for the new firehouse construction. Fiscal officer Laura VanScoy said the township feels it should have been exempt from those permit fees.

Village officials noted that the township did not charge the village zoning fees for the construction of Alexandria's wastewater treatment plant because the township code exempts municipalities.

"Maybe our code is faulty," council member Karen Holt said. She said the village's zoning code was determined not to include any exemptions, according to the advice of previous legal counsel.

"It's been a sticky situation," Holt said. "We hated charging them."

Meanwhile, council approved a letter drafted by Gardner on behalf of the village to the Parker Park Board of Trustees. The letter asks the body to halt plans for a community center/restroom facility at the park until the village sees some relief from its current budget problems.

Council member Scott Hutchinson also made a motion that any legal fees incurred through Gardner by the park board be the responsibility of the board and not the village's general fund. Holt and other members of council agreed by vote.

Brown said the council committee charged with reviewing the two applications received for the open police chief position is ready to make a recommendation to the mayor, who said he would proceed with interviews and background checks.

Acting Police Chief Shawn Geary consulted council during the meeting about concerns the department has with the move from its Granville Street location to a consolidated village office on West Main Street. The move, approved by council last month, is part of an effort to reduce operational expenses.

Geary said state-owned police computer equipment is required to be locked up with no public access. He questioned where that could happen in the current village office. Holt offered to consult with the state about options for security.

The Granville Street building/police headquarters cannot be closed down until after the Nov. 3 election, village officials said, because it's slated to be a polling location.

Council will hold its next regular meeting Nov. 3 at 7 p.m.

Brian

Dague