A construction crane looms high above the new AAG Glass, Inc. plant on Kent Road and Roudebush Lane as work on the plant nears completion. Photo provided.

Editor’s Note: The story has been changed from the print edition to note that John Waite, fiscal officer, did not ask for the four ordinances pertaining to the bond financing plan have its three readings waived, and passed as an emergency. Instead, Waite was asking council to waive the three readings rule, but that it wasn’t necessary to do so, if council did not want to. We apologize and regret the error.

Bean & Brew slated to open before the Christmas holiday

By Brett Milam
Editor

The village of Batavia council met on Dec. 9 to discuss its ongoing foray into the electric utility business.

Since at least February 2018, the village has been trying to get into the business in anticipation of AAG Glass’s newest plant being its first customer.

AAG Glass is a manufacturer of auto glass. A joint operation of Auto Temp, located on Kent Road, AG Glass plans to create 89 full-time positions, generating $3.8 million in new payroll, according to The Highland County Press. 

The new plant will make front windshields, Dennis Nichols, village administrator, explained. 

Essentially, the village would own the utility, but Duke Energy, or a different energy company, would operate it.

Nichols said the village didn’t want to take an existing Duke customers. Even so, Nichols expressed that Auto Temp wasn’t getting enough electricity from Duke.

If the utility were to happen, the village would get $30,000 a year from the kilowatt-hour tax, Nichols added.

However, there’s a road bump in the potential for it to happen: Duke Energy sued the village in August. In a filing before Judge Jerry McBride in Clermont County Common Pleas Court, Duke said it is the exclusive electric supplier to customers within the village of Batavia.

Duke also alleges that since the village is only planning to provide electricity to AAG Glass, that the village does not have a constitutional right to provide that service “at the exclusion of all other residents and/or residential customers.”

Lawrence Barbiere, counsel for the village, along with Christopher Moore, village solicitor, in a filed response, said Common Pleas lacks the jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter (the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is the right venue), and disputed the company’s understanding of “public utility” to provide service to all residents.

On Nov. 12, McBride overruled the motion. Discovery deadline is until July 2020.

“If Duke were to win its lawsuit, the total affect on the village would be nothing on operations, and we would drop the need for the substation,” Nichols told The Sun in a follow-up. “This is one of the reasons we got into it, it’s pretty much a no-lose thing.”

At the latest council meeting, John Waite, fiscal officer, proposed a plan to help pay for the startup costs of the transformers for the electric utility, as well as other capital improvements.

The transformers would cost between $150,000 and $200,000. 

Waite explained that the village would use a $4.3 bond from refinancing on the $3 million 2013 East Main Street bond (the redesign of the street), and the $300,000 note for the Village Armory building renovations purchase to make improvements. Those improvements, aside from the purchase of transformers for the utility, include items, such as demolishing 196 East Main St., street repairs and improvements, and a trailhead park.

The 2013 bond has been paid down to $2.1 million, Waite added.

About $2.4 million would be used to refinance the bonds, and the rest would go to the transformers and the capital improvements.

Waite said the most critical of those improvements are the transformers for the electric utility.

In total, four ordinances were on the table: to refinance the 2013 bond; to refinance the 1-year $300,000 armory renovation note; to use the monies for capital improvements; and to combine the bonds in the previous ordinances into one. 

All four ordinances were requested by Waite to be passed in an expedited fashion by waiving the three readings rule. Waite noted that it wasn’t necessary to do so, but for planning purposes, it was his preference.

Council members Brian Vickers, Jason Garrison, Kathleen Turner, and Robert Handra all had reservations about going forward with waiving the three readings rule.

In particular, Vickers was concerned about the life of the loan and money on interest. 

All four voted against waiving the three readings rule to pass the ordinances, so the first readings were done instead.

In other news …

– Bean & Brew, which was slated to open on Labor Day weekend, and then delayed until mid-October, should be open before Christmas, Dennis Nichols, village administrator said. Nichols said Clermont County Public Health has done its inspections, and the establishment is waiting on approval of a liquor permit. 

– Nichols requested a motion from council to direct Moore to research the process for vacating the village’s property rights for the extension of Eighth Street. While the village owns the right of way for an extension of the street from Wood Street to East Main Street, that extension will never be made due to the private property in the area. 

Council approved the motion.

– Council approved an ordinance to certify trash bill delinquencies so they can be assessed on real estate tax bills. Nichols explained that they already do that process with water and sewer bills, and if someone doesn’t pay the water bill, they can turn the water off. However, that remedy wouldn’t work for trash collection.

– Jim Young, police chief, said an officer was in a crash near Owensville after hitting a deer. The deer did about $3,600 worth of damage to the vehicle. 

Young also mentioned that hunters were found at the site of the Streamside development near state Route 32 and Herold Road. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources handled the matter, as Young said his department didn’t follow up in a criminal capacity.

– This meeting marked council member Thomas Ellis’ last. He didn’t run for re-election in the Nov. 5 General Election. Diana Cole will be the new council member in January.

“I want to personally thank him very much for his time served,” John Thebout, mayor, said.