Miami Township trustees business—
Trustees contribute funds to purchase two easements
Miami Township trustees voted unanimously at their meeting April 21 to spend just over $67,000 out of the farmland preservation fund to help purchase easements on two farms in the township.
The Tecumseh Land Trust asked the Township to contribute the amount, which is 5 percent of the total cost for the two easements.
Funds to support farmland preservation are supplied by township residents’ estate taxes, therefore the money to help buy easements may come partly from the property owners who are selling the easements.
“If the money comes from township estates and if the family wants to preserve their land, in this case what better way would there be to support this family and their farmland?” trustee Lamar Spracklen said at the meeting.
The two property owners who are applying to the State for easement grants are the Spencers, who own 285 acres near Wilberforce-Clifton Road, and the Fultons, who own 107 acres of property on East Enon Road.
The land trust, which walks the property owner through the application process, recommended that if the owner contributed 25 percent through recoupment reduction and the Township contributed 5 percent, each property would have a chance of getting a state grant to cover the remaining 70 percent of the easement cost. The cost of the easement for the Spencer farm is $1.05 million, and for the Fulton farm almost $300,000.
“If the landtrust feels 5 percent is the amount that helps them in this project, I’m for that,” said Chris Mucher, president of the Board of Trustees.
Trustees also passed a resolution for nonmonetary support for the purchase of an easement application for a 217-acre farm near South Pitchin Road in Clark County and seven acres in Miami Township. According to land trust representative Julia Cady, who was present at the trustees’ meeting, the Clark County commissioners have not yet decided whether they will help finance the purchase.
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In other Township business:
• The Ohio House is discussing a zoning bill that could take away the right of townships to regulate mining activity within their borders. The Ohio Township Association is responding to State representatives about the provisions of the bill, but do not include an opinion about the control of mining. The mining provision is not likely to go through, Mucher said.
“The best people to regulate resource management are local authorities, not state or federal mandates,” he said. “You don’t want to lose your ability to control your own resources.”
The bill is “especially poignant” to Miami Township, Mucher said, because the trustees are in the process of rewriting the Township’s mining regulations, which they consider outdated.
• Miami Township Fire-Rescue will host a barbecue fundraiser on Tuesday, May 20, in hopes of raising $1,000 for a thermal imaging camera that can detect the volume of a fire by heat sensor.
The trustees agreed the township buildings would get a little sprucing up for the open house day. During the meeting, Mucher invited the trustees and meeting participants to follow him outside to view the outer walls of the Township and fire house building that need repainting. Trustees agreed that a new coat of paint would be applied to one of the fire house garage doors, the grey cinder block walls facing Corry Street, and the white wall on the front of the Township building.

—Lauren Heaton