Law director: If no deal, let it drop

If no compromise is reached in what to do with the 1884 courthouse, the city probably will not pursue legal action.

City Law Director Brent Howard told members of city council his legal opinion during Monday night's Tiffin City Council meeting.

It is Howard's recommendation the city not spend its limited money on legal action if the courthouse dispute between the Seneca County commissioners and the Architectural Board of Review does not settle itself with a compromise.

Howard said the county is complying with their obligations for good faith negotiations. He said, with competing government agencies and issues of home rule against state power, it is a matter of which government outweighs the other and which is performing the greater good.

Howard said, citing different legal cases, if the courts were to compare the county's duty to provide a courthouse with the city's enforcing the design review regulations to protect its downtown historic distance, the county would win.

While the city did not want to purchase the building, another building they are looking at also is being re-evaluated.

Mayor Jim Boroff said he received an e-mail from the local Salvation Army advising him the organization was obtaining a third appraisal on their building.

He said one appraisal valued the building at $65,000 while the second came in at $130,000.

Boroff said he told officials at the Salvation Army the city would not revise its offer of $75,000, and if the bid was refused certain maintenance issues, such as brick work pulling away, would need to be resolved.

Boroff also informed council members the city is planning to stop operations at the compost and brush facility after Aug. 1 because of a cut in funding from the Ottawa-Seneca-Sandusky Solid Waste District.

He said in contacting other cities his office could not find any other city that offers the service for free.

Council President Paul Elchert and Councilman at Large Pete Galipeau disagreed with closing the facility.

Elchert suggested bringing in townships that have no space to use the facility on a pay-to-use basis to help fund the facility. But Boroff said the city still would have to manage the facility.

Galipeau said residents already are paying one of the higher municipal taxes and expect these kinds of services.

The matter was referred to the Street, Sidewalk and Sewer Committee for a meeting to be held 4:45 p.m. July 16 at the municipal building, 51 E. Market St.

In other matters:

* Members, suspending the three reading rule, approved an introduced ordinance that allowed for funding to be requested and work to begin on asphalt trails for Hedges-Boyer and Schekelhoff parks.

* Members heard an ordinance that declared the necessity of a referendum election for the Miami Street project that includes converting a portion of Jackson Street into a cul-de-sac.