Malvern Village Council selects Tom Holmes as president, discusses park damage and village maintenance

Malvern Village Council selected Councilman Tom Holmes as its new board president and discussed village maintenance at its Jan. 5 meeting and reorganization meeting.

Mayor Bob DeLong swore in new Councilman Mike McCort and those re-elected, including Holmes, Marci Hubbard and Barb Burgess.

Council was disappointed to discover damage at the village park, where someone drove a vehicle through multiple sports fields during the recent snowstorm, doing donuts and tearing up the grass.

“We have one of the nicest parks in Carroll County, we need to take care of it,” Village Administrator Derik Kaltenbaugh said. “We can’t have stupid people driving through the park grass and tearing it up. It is expensive to maintain.”

Kaltenbaugh and council urged residents to try to get a photo of the vehicle and license plate number if they see someone doing this.

“I’ll take the photos to the sheriff and they will deal with them,” Kaltenbaugh said. “Without a police force it is up to us to deal with this the best we can.”

Council discussed possible action including installing cameras in the park to prevent this. They have seen motorcycles on the walking track before as well which is not allowed.

Councilman Jan Wackerly said he will reach out to sports coaches and ask them to be vigilant because they are at the park often and can help be a pair of eyes and ears.

Council members expressed frustration over protecting what they see as one of Malvern’s best assets and talked about possible responses including cameras, public reminders to “see something, say something” and better communication with coaches and students who use the fields.

In an unrelated matter, council discussed the recent snowstorm on New Year’s Eve and the village response.

Kaltenbaugh said the street crew was out plowing and salting from 3 a.m. until 10:30 a.m., then returned later the same day from 3 p.m. until 11 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. In addition to those extended shifts, they also plowed and salted on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of that week.

Council members repeatedly emphasized that the crews worked long, difficult hours and did an excellent job keeping Malvern’s roads clear, particularly with only two workers out of four available. One was sick and one was out of town.

“The guys did a good job,” Derik said. “I’m not going to listen to people on Facebook talk crap about our guys, they did a great job for two people. I had to drive that day and when I hit Malvern it was better than some of the other towns I had to drive through, I was impressed.”

Council spent considerable time discussing problems with employees frequently taking unpaid days off while holding on to their vacation time, which has led to short staffing and delays in getting village work done.

The consensus was that the policy needs to be tightened so employees must use their accrued time, such as sick days, personal days or vacation, before being allowed to take unpaid days off.

Council members noted that some workers have been taking repeated unpaid days early in the year and then saving their vacation, which they felt was unfair to employees who consistently show up.

“People have taken advantage of this,” Kaltenbaugh said. “I think what we need to do: if you're taking time off, you use up your time first. There’s no sense in you taking 15 days off, and then at the end of the year you have two week’s vacation. It’s not fair to the guys that are showing up every day.”

Council also emphasized that the village could request a doctor’s note at any time, especially if patterns of absence appear, such as frequent Monday or Friday call-offs.

They agreed this change should be added to the employee handbook as an addendum and will be addressed at an upcoming meeting.

In other business, council: 

— REVIEWED several upcoming improvement projects, with a strong focus on park upgrades and infrastructure maintenance. They highlighted the need to repair or redesign the park’s walking track, replace the aging fence along the front of the park and continue removing trees whose roots are damaging pavement and walkways. The parking lot project, shared among the village, the school and the Carroll County commissioners, is awaiting movement from the commissioners, who are expected to pursue the related grant. This will take until around April or May. Council is working on creating a formal project list for the year to show visible progress to residents. 

— DISCUSSED the need to retire the village’s aging backhoe, which has become unreliable, unsafe and costly to maintain. Kaltenbaugh noted that the arm no longer stops where it should, the machine frequently breaks down and it is no longer suitable for loading salt or assisting with water-line repairs. The crew has been relying more on the mini-excavator, but the current trailer for transporting it is old and inadequate. They concluded the village should stop using the backhoe once winter operations are finished and begin exploring the purchase of a small or mid-sized loader, which would better meet the village’s needs and improve safety for workers. 

— PAID village bills of $41,353.32, approved by the Finance Committee on Dec. 31, and $60,458.13, approved Jan. 5, and biweekly payrolls of $5,871.25 paid Dec. 31.

The next council meeting is at a special time, 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 21, at Village Hall due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day falling on that Monday.