Wilhelm: The news from 40 years ago still seems familiar
Forty years ago today, it was reported in The News-Messenger that Fremont Cablevision’s Timothy Wolfe and the Fremont City Council utilities committee were discussing the firm’s contract.
The cable company was asking to add six channels to the system and 90 cents to the customer’s monthly bill, raising the cost to subscribers to $7.75 for 17 channels instead of the $6.95 for 11 channels.
City officials were considering joining a coalition instead of granting a 15-year extension as requested.
Community was dealing with OLD clean-up plans
On the front page that day, Ohio Liquid Disposal was in the news in connection with an Ohio Environmental Protection order to submit a plan to clean up “the 1.5 million gallons of PCB-contaminated oil at the site.”
Sandusky County Health Commissioner Kenneth Kerik said that the cleanup “will be a massive logistical problem” and said the company may indeed need more time to devise a plan.
Meanwhile, Bill Warner of Vickery, a leader in the agricultural community, in a letter to the editor, was encouraging attendance at a meeting on the subject at the county health department because “Land and water are our two most vital resources.”
UPDATE: According to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Vickery Environmental, Inc. (VEI) … currently operates four Class I hazardous underground injection wells. Three other injection wells have been plugged and abandoned. VEI, the successor to Chemical Waste Management and Waste Management of Ohio (WMO), acquired the facility from OLD in 1978. Waste Management however has remained the owner/operator of the injection wells.
Waste Management on its website says it “is on a mission to maximize resource value while minimizing — and even eliminating — environmental impact so that both our economy and environment can thrive.”
Also in the news 40 years ago, “The Vanguard Board of Education interviewed the last of seven candidates for the job … and could hire a new superintendent at its regularly scheduled April meeting…”
Larry Graser, 36, was awarded a 26-month contract to “earn $38,000 the first year.” He was director of vocational and adult education for Oregon City Schools at the time.
Townships, county dealt with EMS issues
Then there was the request by the Sandusky Township trustees for a change of policy for dispatching ambulances in the township.
In the letter to EMS Director Gary LeMaitre, trustees were requesting a return to a policy agreed to about two years earlier under which township EMTs responded first to ambulance requests in their jurisdiction, leaving the decision whether to summon a county EMS crew to the first township EMT on the scene.
The policy had been changed three months earlier, sending both EMS and township squad to calls that were dispatched through the county’s dispatch service.
Another medical service was in the news as Goebel’s announced plans to expand to Tiffin later in the month. Tiffin’s tax-supported ambulance should not perform invalid or transfer services. Outside the city, Goebel’s crews were to serve as back-up to existing services.
Meanwhile, Memorial Hospital honored Nan Newman and Dorothy Stebner for 25 years of volunteer service and gave special awards to Caroline Prosek and Alice Walter as it thanked volunteers for more than 19,432 hours of service during 1982.
Roy Wilhelm started a 40-year career at The News-Messenger in 1965 as a reporter. Now retired, he writes a column for both The News-Messenger and News Herald.
This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Wilhelm: The news from 40 years ago still seems familiar
