College Corner considers new elected positions, faces investigations, approves fire department funding

Following the resignation of College Corner's village administrator and fiscal officer this summer, members of the village council want to replace both roles with elected positions.

At a meeting Sept. 12, council member Danyell Bolser said the village should replace the hired positions with elected positions of clerk and treasurer. Her reason, she said, ties into the contract previous fiscal officer Jennifer Woods had secured granting 120 days of paid sick leave per year.

"Somebody's gonna want that contract," Bolser said.

According to the Ohio Auditor, village councils may eliminate the appointed fiscal officer position through a two-thirds vote on an ordinance or resolution. "If a vacancy exists in the office of village fiscal officer," the Village Officer's Handbook reads, "the abolition shall take effect on the effective date of the ordinance or resolution, and the mayor will appoint a village clerk/treasurer to serve until the first day of April following the next regular municipal election."

Woods resigned after details of her contract became public. Mayor Molly Cason and other newly elected village council members also alleged that Woods and her father, Mike Sims, who served as the volunteer village administrator, restricted access to public records and buildings. Sims has since resigned, as well, as have all four council members who served prior to the 2023 election.

Two seats on the village council are still vacant. Two residents have applied, Cason said during the Sept. meeting. She intends to speak to the applicants to gauge their interest and swear them in at the October meeting.

Mayor Molly Cason had reservations about eliminating the appointed position. She has been helping take care of the city's bills, especially water billing, since the resignations on a volunteer basis while still working a full-time job.

"I personally want to just go ahead and hire a fiscal officer to come in and just be able to ... pay the bills, do the water bills," Cason said.

Three investigations underway

During the meeting, Cason confirmed that the village is in the midst of three separate investigations. One is an antitrust investigation, a second is being conducted by the Butler County Prosecutor's Office, and a third ethics investigation is also taking place, according to village officials.

Cason did not discuss details of any of the cases at the meeting. An attorney for the village advised Cason and the council members to wait before discussing the specifics of each case.

The Ohio Ethics Commission reports on its website that its investigations are confidential and that it cannot confirm or deny investigations. Mike Gmoser, Butler County Prosecutor, said his office also has a policy not to confirm or deny investigations. The Oxford Free Press has reached out to the Ohio Attorney General's Office to confirm the antitrust investigation.

Village approves funding for volunteer fire department

A representative for the West College Corner Volunteer Fire Department, which serves people in both Indiana and Ohio, spoke at the meeting about the department's funding needs. The department has to update its radios, which are almost 20 years old.

The new radios will ultimately cost the department $85,000, while the department's yearly budget is just $60,000. To come up with funding, the department asked for $10,000 contributions from the communities it serves, including College Corner.

The village already has a fire levy in place to help pay for its contract with the volunteer fire department. The levy raises slightly more money than the cost of the contract each year and now has roughly $20,000 in excess funds. The fire department requested $10,000 from those funds to help buy new radios, and the village council unanimously approved of the idea to a round of applause from the public.