The Vandalia City Council held its regular meeting on December 18, 2023, at 7:00 PM. The meeting included personnel introductions and oaths of office, proclamations honoring outgoing officials and a retiring employee, and the unanimous approval of five resolutions awarding contracts for various infrastructure projects, three second-reading ordinances, and one emergency ordinance revising appropriations. The council also went into executive session to discuss the appointment of a fire division employee.
Followed by the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Please stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the United States. Council, next we have the approval of minutes. We have the council study session minutes of November 20th, the council meeting minutes of November 20th also. Are there any comments or corrections? Being none, I stand approved. That brings us to communications petitions and awards. And we have a introduction by City Manager Wynn. Thank you very much, Your Honor. There are a couple of uh items under this section, hence the full room. The uh first I'd like to ask our former city engineer Ben Borton and our new public service director, Ben Borton, to go ahead and stand up. He's here with his wife Allie, and then also Glenn, their one-year-old son is here as well, as well as Ben's mom and his in-laws, and so thank you everybody for uh for coming. You you'll recall that uh Mr. Borton is a butler, uh a butler grad, he's an Eagle Scout, he's got a bachelor's degree in civil engineering. He was working on the private side out in Colorado Springs, and I I like to joke with him that all Ohioans who move out to Colorado Springs when they have a baby, they have to move back to Ohio to be close to family, and um we sure are glad that we could take advantage of that. Uh Mr. Borton's been a very active learner, and uh since he's been on here and he's he's impressed all of us. Uh when we originally met, I I spoke with Ben about purposeful development and career ladders at the city of Vandalia. And uh I said to him at um warehouse four that I would like for him to recognize that we're hiring him to be the city engineer, but at three five years when Rob Cron retired, it would be my intention that he'd have a three to five year interview and become the service director. That's been accelerated with Mr. Cron's uh promotion to assistant city manager, and so um I sat down with Ben, I sat down with our senior staff with the folks who have been able to work around him and uh universal confidence and not only Ben's probability for success, but the desire of the people who are around him who want him to be successful, and that includes me and Rob Cron. And so really proud of you, Ben, and uh congrats on the really quick promotion. Thank you. Um next, what I'll do is I will introduce Mr. Malcolm Dennis, who is our newest police officer. And uh Mr. Dennis, would you just yep, please stand up? And uh I've got right here Mr. Mr. Dennis lives in Anglewood. He joined us relatively recently and graduated from uh graduated from the Academy. He holds a bachelor's of criminal justice from Wright State University, and then also an associates from Sinclair Community College. Previously, he's worked at Bow Towns and Ford, um, and also was at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office for some time while he was putting himself through Academy. Um I have it under good authority that the Englewood Police Department really wanted him, um, but they just could not have him. And so uh without further ado, I'll go ahead and I'll swear in Mr. Dennis. All right, we're gonna make sure so that we can hear everybody come right up here. Yeah, that's that's why that's why I probably put you right here. Mrs. Dennis, please go ahead and stand kind of right there and we'll get this worked out. I Malcolm Dennis solemnly swear. I'm Malcolm Dennis. That I will support the Constitution. That was the Constitution and will obey the laws of the United States and of the state of Ohio. And of the State of Ohio. That I will in all respects. Observe the provisions of the charter. Observe the students. And ordinances of the City of Vandalia.