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MENTONE – Mentone Town Council discussed a rental agreement for both pavilions at Mentzer Park Wednesday.
Clerk-Treasurer Amanda Yaprak presented the council with a rough draft of a pavilion rental agreement prior to the meeting.
She said a concern was the pavilion rental costs.
There are a few people that are requesting to rent the pavilions at Mentzer Park, but until the town has a rental agreement in place, Yaprak said she didn’t know what to say to people who wanted to rent one of the pavilions at the park.
Councilman Tim Croy suggested a $100 or $150 rental fee. He also said he’s seen some rental agreements that have clean-up fees. All of the rental agreements he’s seen have security deposits. He said he didn’t know if they wanted to do a flat fee for a security deposit and take a cleaning fee out of the deposit or not.
Council President Jill Gross said her thought was there would be a $100 rental fee, but people should clean up the pavilion themselves.
Yaprak said details didn’t have to be decided Wednesday because the kitchenette and picnic tables weren’t done yet.
Utilities Superintendent Josh Shepherd suggested only renting out one of the two pavilions at the park a day. He said if both pavilions are rented out, the parking isn’t going to work out.
There was discussion of whether there should be a price difference in rental fees for the two pavilions.
Shepherd asked if the town wanted to make the pavilions tobacco-free of if people should clean up any cigarette butts. Croy asked if they want to purchase smoking receptacles. Gross suggested maybe if it gets to that point.
Since the town doesn’t have a finalized rental agreement, Yaprak asked if the pavilions can still be rented out. Council agreed to allow the pavilions to be rented out at $50 until a finalized agreement can be approved.
Croy said the council will review the agreement once there are picnic tables set up.
At the end of the meeting, council was asked about damage from the storm Tuesday.
A home at 311 Broadway St., Mentone, was damaged after a large tree blew over, clipping the corner of the house. No one was home at the time.
Shepherd and Town Marshal Keaton Schopf said size-wise, that was the worst damage during the storm. Other people brought up hail and damage associated with that.
Croy said he thinks Mentone was the only town that had damage because he went through Silver Lake, North Manchester and Claypool Wednesday and he didn’t hear of any damage.
In other business, the council:
• Heard the town’s crowd funding campaign for the CreatINg Places grant for phase two of the park upgrade will be launched Saturday. The last day of the campaign is May 30.
• Heard the town has been approved for a $140,000 grant through the K21 Health Foundation for phase two of the park upgrade. However, the K21 grant is contingent on the town raising $50,000 through the CreatINg Places grant.
• Approved an ordinance prohibiting the use of public records for commercial use on second reading. The ordinance does not apply for the gathering of news, nonprofit activities or academic research.
Town attorney Austin Rovenstine said he thinks the purpose of the ordinance is to make sure the town is not expending energy and resources in gathering electronic data for people to use for their own private data. If someone wanted to look at public records for commercial purposes, they could come in to the clerk-treasurer’s office and inspect them themselves.
• Heard the Mentone Chamber of Commerce’s Easter egg hunt is at 10 a.m. Saturday.
• Heard spring cleanup is scheduled for May 13.
Schopf said ordinance warnings will be issued the week after and citations will follow.
• Heard the opening day for the Mentone Youth League is April 25. There will be a parade starting at Mentone Elementary School at 9 a.m.
• Heard from Shepherd about the bridge at the park, which is 100 years old. There was work done to the bridge, including painting and sand blasting. Shepherd said he thought it looked amazing.
• Approved signing a proclamation that April is Child Abuse Prevention and Awareness Month.
• Heard from resident Tim Carter, who thanked the Mentone Fire Department for their help during a benefit dinner and auction for Greg Leininger on March 21.
