Bethel Township Trustees discuss liquor permit for carry-out at intersection of US 40, 202

BRANDT- The Bethel Township Trustees discussed a request seeking a liquor permit for a new carry-out planned for the corner of U.S. 40 and State Route 202 in Phoneton during their workshop meeting held on Tuesday, July 30.

Trustees received notice from the Ohio Department of Commerce on Friday, July 26, of a liquor permit application for the property at 4423 US 40 submitted by R & R Takhar Operations, LLC. Trustees are required to report any objections to the liquor permit to the Department of Commerce within 30 days of receiving the notice.

“I don’t see any issue,” Board of Trustees President Julie Reese said. “This is the property on the corner of US 40 and State Route 202. It’s going to be a carry-out.”

In other business, trustees also discussed the ten applications received for the open Fire Chief position, Reese said.

“The Fire Chief applications have been received,” she said. “That will be one of the things we talk about in executive session.”

“We have six firm applications and potentially four others that may be out of state,” Reese said.

Trustees also heard an introduction from Jonathan Newman, who will be on the ballot for State Representative in the upcoming November election. They also discussed two new web pages that were recently added to the township’s website.

There are two new web pages,” Reese said. “I created a job postings page, and a resolutions 2024 page with all of the resolutions to date for 2024.”

During the public comment portion of the meeting, several residents spoke about the recent approval of the annexation of Bethel Township property by the city of Huber Heights.

“Over the weekend, I’ve been talking to State Representative Phil Plummer,” resident Donna Hughes said.

Plummer and Representative Warren Davidson plan to work on legislation to repeal current annexation laws, Hughes said.

“They don’t believe that was correct, so they’re going to try to get some legislation for that,” she said. “I’m really angry that all the work we did, we never thought of going to the state house, to our representatives to repeal the law.”

Resident and former township trustee Don Black also spoke on Huber Heights City Council’s recent annexation vote.

“They’re still willing to sit down and talk about conforming the boundaries and the moratorium,” Black said. “They still seem like they’re going to be willing to talk about that.”

“I’m hoping something gets done,” he said. “They are not going to come to us to talk about it, but they might listen to us if we go to them.”

Black also discussed Carriage Trails residents outnumbering Bethel Township residents in the Bethel Local Schools.

“I did not realize that Carriage Trails is 71 percent of Bethel Schools now,” he said. “That means about 1,410 or so students at Bethel are from Carriage Trails. That leaves less than 600 in the Bethel area.”

“If Carriage Trails was not there, Bethel Schools would have been shut down a few years back because they were talking about shutting it down when we had 1,000,” Black said.

“If Carriage Trails got their act together, they could 100 percent control the school board, because they have way more voters than we have in Bethel,” he said. “I kind of doubt that would happen, but they could do that.”

“We may want to look at that,” Black said. “We’re definitely a minority at the moment.”

Trustees ended their meeting by adjourning to an executive session. A full audio recording of the workshop meeting can be found online through the township’s website at www.betheltownship.org.