LEWISBURG — Lewisburg Village Council met on Thursday, July 21, and discussed various topics and updates.

Council approved an ordinance to accept a donation agreement involving a proposed gift of real estate from Betty J. McKinney. Mayor Marsha Jones noted, “I think that these buildings are important to preserve for our community, for the history and the potential of what we could do with them.”

To get all of the paperwork and to close as soon as possible, council waived the three reading rule and approved the ordinance. Even though this is a gift, the village is still responsible for closing costs on the property.

Municipal Manager Jeff Sewert discussed electric vehicles and future charging stations in his report. “So, at the end of the day there’s gonna be electric cars out on the road and there is going to be a fast charging location… sometime in late ‘23 or ‘24 we’re going to see some type of charging station either at Ohio 503 or U.S. 127.”

Council raised many questions and voiced concerns about the charging stations — will this help traffic into the village and will the government be fixing the roads around this to prepare for these stations? For now, however, Sewert did not have details about the project.

Susan Laux spoke about a required public record keeping training. According to Laux, the training must be done by village council or the council can appoint a designated person to attention for the members. Council appointed Laux the designated person for the training.

Police Chief Rick McGee and Laux have been working to get a quote and funding to install computers and software into the police department’s vehicles. The cost was too great and would use the entire remaining police fund for 2022, they reported. The solution is to use around $88,000 of the police fund in 2022 and the remaining amount will be paid from the departmen’ts 2023 fund.

In the fire and EMS report given by Chief BJ Sewert, he explained there were two new employees joining the firehouse — Mallory Creech and Casey Whip. Chief Sewert also explained to council that since the EMA coordinator had resigned, he would be supervising the northern part of the county until the position is filled.