Government

The cold win­ter weather is back with a vengeance, and it appears as though it’s going to stick around for at least a few more weeks. On Sun­day, in response to the unusu­ally cold tem­per­a­tures, the Gov­er­nor issued a “propane emer­gency” for all of Ohio’s 88 coun­ties. The governor’s dec­la­ra­tion …

The gov­er­nor has issued a statewide energy emer­gency dec­la­ra­tion in order to expe­dite ship­ments of propane and help ease tight propane gas sup­plies which have been brought on by the extreme cold weather. Now, the gov­er­nor is also ask­ing the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to take sim­i­lar steps so that propane gas …

In Stryker, four newly elected council members were sworn into office at Monday night’s meeting: • Michael Fox works for Promedica as a paramedic and is also an EMS first responder. • Richard Wityk is the commander of the American Legion in Stryker. • Robert Sperling is a maintenance supervisor …

Montpelier Village Council elected Dan Clum president Monday evening. Council also learned about a federal Community Development Block Grant and approved the purchase of three voltage regulators for the expansion of the airport substation. Council agreed to make the grant, worth $170,000, available to be used to upgrade and improve …

As of New Years Day, Ohio became one of more than a dozen states which raised the min­i­mum wage. Most work­ers on min­i­mum wage will see an increase from $7.85 to $7.95 per hour for non-tipped employ­ees, and from $3.93 to $3.98 per hour for tipped employ­ees. But the increase …

Ful­ton County has a new trea­surer. Char­lene Lee of Pet­tisville will fill the posi­tion fol­low­ing the retire­ment of for­mer trea­surer Bev Schlosser. Now, Lee is plan­ning her res­ig­na­tion from her cur­rent posi­tion as chief finan­cial offi­cer of the Defi­ance Pub­lic Library Sys­tem effec­tive Dec. 27. Lee resides in Pet­tisville with …

A for­mer Mont­pe­lier vil­lage clerk who was con­victed in 2012 of steal­ing for than $90,000 from the vil­lage, is now a free woman. Anna Marie Stark of Mont­pe­lier, was sen­tenced in Sep­tem­ber 2012 to 30 months in prison after an audit revealed that Stark made 71 fraud­u­lent billing adjust­ments, val­ued …

Defi­ance City Coun­cil passed an ordi­nance Tues­day night approv­ing the bud­get fol­low­ing a third read­ing — one of 10 leg­isla­tive items approved dur­ing the final meet­ing of the year. One of those items included an emer­gency ordi­nance estab­lish­ing the budget’s new police and fire fund. Eight other ordi­nances, includ­ing one …

Williams County Com­mis­sion­ers accepted one res­ig­na­tion and made two appoint­ments Mon­day. Depart­ment of Job and Fam­ily Ser­vices Social Ser­vices Super­vi­sor Geri Sev­ers sub­mit­ted a let­ter of res­ig­na­tion for retire­ment, effec­tive Dec. 31. The board accepted it “with regrets,”. The Bryan Times reports this morn­ing that Com­mis­sion­ers also appointed Ned Allen …

The Gov­er­nor announced Tues­day that he has autho­rized the use of State Dis­as­ter Relief funds to assist Cloverdale in Put­nam County con­tinue to recover from the severe storms and tor­na­does on Nov. 17. The State Dis­as­ter Relief Pro­gram is an autho­rized reim­burse­ment pro­gram intended to pro­vide assis­tance to local gov­ern­ments …