What You Missed from This Week's Council Meeting ...

For those who couldn’t make it to Monday night’s township council meeting, there were a few items on the agenda that didn’t make it into a full story, but were nonetheless noteworthy. Here a few leftover tidbits from the meeting:

• Prior to its regular meeting at 7:30 p.m. on April 16, council will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. specifically to discuss the athletic fields improvement project (formerly known as K.I.D.S.). Mayor John Button said he felt the issue was important enough to separate it from the rest of the agenda. “I want to focus just on that,” he said. The township received bids for the fields project at the end of last month——and Button said the clock is ticking. “It’s time for us to drive to a decision,” he said, suggesting they need to make up their minds within 60 days of receiving the bids. As for how the township plans to pay for the project—bonding, , a combination—Button said council has not discussed it yet.

• Council approved (on first reading) an ordinance amending township code for the SRC (Specially Restricted Commercial) zone to allow the placement of full-service restaurants that serve alcohol at “indoor shopping malls.” The ordinance is the latest step council has taken to .  A public hearing will be held at council’s April 16 meeting to formally adopt the ordinance. Township attorney Thomas Coleman said he would soon be drafting a resolution laying out the procedure for the issuance of liquor licenses, which is the final step to lay the administrative groundwork to begin bidding licenses.

• Council will introduce an ordinance at its next meeting to ban roll-off containers and dumpsters from township streets. The ordinance comes at the recommendation of Sgt. Randy Pugh, the police department’s traffic safety officer, who said he hasn’t issued a permit for a roll-off container or dumpster to be parked in the street in four years and the ordinance just formalizes his position. A few council members asked if there could be some flexibility in the ordinance, but Pugh argued the township would put itself at “tremendous risk” of a lawsuit should a motorist strike a container that was allowed to be parked in the street. “Will people be inconvenienced? Absolutely. Do they have other options? I would say so,” said Pugh. “It’s a case of risk versus need.”

• Township manager Scott Carew will decide how to manage requests for banners on Main Street. Currently, the township receives more requests to place banners on the Main Street light poles from various groups in town than it has room for. A few strategies were considered—adding more poles, limiting the number of banners per group—but after some discussion, council settled on shortening the amount of time banners can be hung, leaving the specifics in Carew’s hands.

Council will hold its next meeting at 7:30 p.m. April 16 at .