By Andrew Walsh
awalsh@wbcowqel.com

The New Washington Village Council didn’t meet for long Monday but that didn’t prevent the village gazebo from getting its share of attention.

The Village of New Washington kicked off 2014 by swearing in the newly elected members of the Village Council. They included returning members Geraldine Lucius, Gertrude Durnwald, Paul Forster, and new member Brian Agin. Joe Blum was re-elected as President of Council

Blum was sitting in for unavailable Mayor Ben Lash, and in his absence it was a brief meeting.

Committee assignments will be handed out at the Jan. 27 meeting, as Lash wanted to be in attendance any feedback about the assignments for the upcoming year. Until that time committee assignments will remain what they were in 2013, with Agin taking over for the departed Carolyn Kaple on the Safety Service Committee.

Village Administrator Norm Lucius presented to council the need for new Christmas decorations at the gazebo. Many of the current decorations have lights that no longer work and are in a “dingy” condition, according to Lucius. He proposed the purchase of 12 new figures for the Nativity scene and tracked down an establishment that is selling them at a reduced rate, as long as the order is placed by February. These 12 new figures would match the pieces the village currently possess and would make the new nativity scene contain figures all of the same style. These 12 figures would cost around $3,800, shipping included, and Council will make a decision at the next meeting.

Joe Blum reported that he observed work done at the College Hill Cemetery that was provided by the company which will be refreshing the Union Cemetery in New Washington. He reported that College Hill is very happy with the job that was done and, in his estimation, their cemetery looked very good.

Scott Hiler has applied for grants through Crawford County and North Central for the funds to replace the benches at the gazebo. Currently there are wooden benches that are only outside seasonally, the plan is to replace these with aluminum benches that would be permanent fixtures. The cost of this project is in the neighborhood of $6,000.

Hiler also reported that Pattie Krebs’ computer at the Village is in dire need of replacement. It is ten years old and only has 256 megabytes of memory, or, not even enough to run current anti-virus software. Hiler will work with Krebs to put together a machine that fits her needs.

“It’s a dog and needs to be replaced,” Hiler said.

The meeting about the tropical birds has yet to happen; more will be reported after it has taken place.