BOTKINS – The Botkins Village Council met briefly Tuesday night to approve items for the November ballot.

They passed resolutions to submit the energy aggregation options for the village to the board of elections. Village Administrator Ryan Piche said their next step will be to reach out to the voters. The will hold public hearings before their next two council meetings on Aug. 11 and 25.

Mayor Steve Woodruff said they are going to get the best price they can get, and they will have buying power from all the different villages. He said he told a group of people it will be lower than you can get right now and if you don’t want it, you can opt out.

They welcome members of the community to voice their opinions and questions on energy aggregation to them before those meetings.

The council members that are up for re-election also have to submit their petitions to run again to the board of elections next week.

Also discussed at the meeting, the Botkins Fire Department is trying to move forward with the junior fire department program. They are going to give a sample of the permission slip, which another village is already using, to the village solicitor, so that they can make sure everything makes sense and they aren’t missing anything. Once it gets approved through all channels they will move forward with the program.

Piche said all the entities involved in the creation of the new subdivision are going to meet next week and get everything to move forward with annexation. If everything goes as planned they will break ground by the end of summer or beginning of the fall. They just finalized the sale of the fifth lot.

He also mentioned since the passing of House Bill 5 in the State of Ohio, they are going to have to meet to change some ordinances around to make sure the village can continue to collect tax. He did mention they are doing most of the things that were changed in the bill already.

Piche said the EPA visited last week and they haven’t heard back yet, so that means they probably did okay. He said they usually get back quickly when there is an issue.

He said they are going to do some spot paving around town and it’s going to cost around $12,000.

The council approved moving some money into the water fund because the fund was tightened up on the budget for this year, but they are actually running right along side where they were last year.

Woodruff also noted that they need to figure out parking for volleyball and basketball games, because when it snows and there are two giant trucks on each side of the street, there is no room to get through.

The council also approved Tick-or-Treat for Nov. 1 from 1 to 2:30 p.m.