State Audit Results: 4 STARS - Highest Achievement
Geauga Soil & Water Conservation District Board Meeting - July 8, 2025
Meeting Details: The Geauga Soil & Water Conservation District (Geauga SWCD) met on July 8, 2025 at 7:30 am at the Geauga County Office Building, 12611 Ravenwood Dr. #240, Chardon, OH.
Board Attendance: Robert Lausin, Vice Chair; Tracy Engle, Secretary; Mary Slingluff, Treasurer
Not Present: Jeff Huntsberger, Board Chair; Dee Belew, Fiscal Agent
Staff Attendance: Carmella Shale, District Director/Engineer; Gail Prunty, Education/Communications Specialist; Lisa Berkheimer, Conservation Technician; Colleen Lair, Administrative Assistant
Others in Attendance: Rebecca O’Neill, Program Specialist, ODA-DSWC (Ohio Department of Agriculture - Division of Soil & Water Conservation); Julie Parker, District Conservationist, USDA/NRCS (United States Department of Agriculture/Natural Resources Conservation Services)
Open Board Meeting - Meeting was called to order by Mr. Engle at 7:43 a.m.
The Pledge of Allegiance was recited.
MOTION - Approved July 8, 2025 Board Meeting Agenda.
MOTION - Approved June 10, 2025 Board Meeting Minutes with 2 changes, one motion was for a missing number and the other motion was for an incorrectly numbered item.
OPEN PUBLIC DISCUSSION - No public comments were made.
INTRODUCTION OF NEW EMPLOYEE – HENRY HOEU
Mr. Hoeu is a Cleveland State University student who is a Junior studying Civil Engineering. He was hired as an intern for the summer to help with the water basin inspections. He was born in Cambodia and came to the US in 2011 and grew up in Cleveland. He said he started last week and has enjoyed learning all the different things that the agency does. He plans to open his own business when he graduates, and he is very interested in water conservation. The Board took time to talk to him about their education and professional backgrounds. Each organizational guest talked to him about their agency focus and how they worked together with Geauga Soil & Water Conservation. He has gone out with two employees and has already inspected 34 water basins in Chester.
Observer Note: Mr. Hoeu gave an interesting talk about the differences in water flow infrastructure in the United States and in Cambodia where it just floods and takes residents hours to get home when the flooding occurs.
Motions Approved-
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MOTION– money transfer in the amount of $1,300.34 from Huntington Savings (Electronic/Stripe Payments through end of June 2025) to Huntington Checking
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MOTION– payment for expenditures, purchase orders, vouchers and bills as presented including EFT payments and estimates and Sales Tax EFT payment of $13.50 less ¾% discount
Review previous month mail, bank statements, payroll and minutes – sign/initial/date as applicable- Ms. Slingluff reviewed and signed the checks presented to her.
SCHEDULED GUEST: REBECCA O’NEILL, PROGRAM SPECIALIST, ODA-DSWC (Ohio Department of Agriculture-Division Soil Water Conservation)
Updates - Big push is a reminder of Board of Elections materials. For those on the board running, they are in good shape and have made their dates. Reviewer Note: Soil and Water Conservation District Board members are elected. See information from the Ohio Department of Agriculture here.
North American Manure Expo is July 30-31 at the Fulton County Fairgrounds, Farm Science Review is September 16-18 in London, Ohio. They will try and have a cover crop training September 11th. Geauga Soil & Water Conservation staff will be helping out with the Educator’s Workshop October 22-23, 2025. HR Compliance and handbooks will be the push for the month of August for their personnel with focus on their Administrative Development Program (ADP) support for administrators and the board.
Budget Update: They have not heard anything on their budget since it went to Governor DeWine. They keep hearing that the State funding match hasn’t been changed, which has been their primary concern and focus. A question was asked about the Governor’s line-item veto, and it was confirmed that the deadline has passed and there has been no indication–either through direct communication or online–that anything was vetoed. Ms. O’Neill reported that they are feeling good about the State match, which is the same as last year, and is considering no news as good news.
Partnership Meeting has been moved to February 9-11, 2026.
SCHEDULED GUEST: JULIE PARKER, DISTRICT CONSERVATIONIST, USDA/NRCS (United States Department of Agriculture/Natural Resources Conservation Services)
They are working on finishing up three remaining obligations and received four new ones in June. One was for Geauga and the other three were for Ashtabula. Ms. Parker brought in four conservation plans for review by the Board which consisted of a forestry plan in Huntsburg, a forest management plan in Newbury, and two Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQUIP) plans. The Board reviewed, signed and made a motion to approve.
They are doing Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) renewals for the four people who had CSPs from 2020 and who have opted to renew their contracts. Ms. Parker reported that they will be meeting with each of them and will do some planning for a renewal contract.
They have been doing some wetland monitoring for the easement team who lost a couple of people who would have been monitoring things this summer. Since most wetlands are in Lake and Geauga counties, they are helping with the monitoring.
No new Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) right now.
Observer Notes: Learn more about Forestry Plans here. Learn more about Conservation Planning here. Learn more about EQUIP plans here.
Shardonay Miller, Soil Conservationist with USDA/NRCS is going to be doing a detail in Salem, OH as the Acting District Conservationist (Acting DC), starting in October. She will be there two days a week because the lone employee there is retiring and they can’t hire anyone.
SCHEDULED GUEST: Camp Canopy Scholarship Recipient presentation on Camp Canopy experience - The office funded two scholarships this year for Camp Canopy and one of the recipients came to talk to the Board about his camp experience this summer.
A West Geauga High School student, going into his sophomore year, came to the meeting with his father. He said their primary focus of study was in Silviculture (responsibly managing a forest for the benefit of everyone) & Ecology (studying the interaction of living organisms with their environment). He brought some photos of a birdwatching hike they did and talked about learning how to measure and value trees to determine how many 16’ logs one could get out of the tree. They did typical camp adventures as well, including campfires, kayaking, making friends, boating and team building. He talked about how this camp will help him in the future and how he learned a lot about different careers. By meeting people who work in these conservation areas, he learned what they do in a typical work day and heard about various colleges that offer education in their areas.
LISA BERKHEIMER, CONSERVATION TECHNICIAN
MOTION/ACKNOWLEDGE - Ag Pollution Complaint – Brown – Chardon Twp - The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has an online complaint form regarding a private residence located on Auburn Road, north of Hwy 6. The complaint stated there were seven small pigs in a pen that were considered to be pets. According to Ms. Berkheimer, who visited the property, the resident informed her that her husband kept the pigs but had fallen ill. She also informed Ms. Berkheimer that the pigs were scheduled to go to slaughter. Ms. Berkheimer reported that as of the meeting date, the pigs were disposed of. She found no visible signs of water pollution. This complaint was considered an odor complaint, which this agency does not regulate. A warning letter was sent to the owner of the property as is standard procedure. Motion for acknowledgement of the complaint and resolution approved.
CARMELLA SHALE, DISTRICT DIRECTOR/ENGINEER
MOTION – Quarterly Review of 2025 Annual Plan of Work
Second Quarter Review of work was presented:
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There were not a lot of Storm Sewer inspections because there were not a lot of dry days during this period.
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111 Plan Reviews were completed during this last quarter.
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Agricultural Pollution Abatement Program (APAP) - one new complaint was unsubstantiated and one complaint still open.
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786 Sight Inspections during the second quarter (One violation filed with the court and pretrial is scheduled for Thursday in front of Judge Rambo.)
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34 Basin inspections in Chester
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Geauga County Horse Manure Stakeholder Group from ODA in the City of Akron got a $22,000 public water supplies grant, and they are using the money to mail a survey to county residents to determine manure quantities to avoid water pollution. Reviewer Note: Email communication from Ms. Shale indicated that the City of Akron owns a considerable amount of land in Geauga County, and Akron has a vested interest in making sure the water is safe while disposing of manure in order to protect their water supply, some of which comes from Geauga.
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Urban State Working Committee Bee Hive sight users group to help people.
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Education: 26 general programs for schools.
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3 adult programs and two Woodlands Wednesday and Leadership Geauga (Geauga Stream Team).
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Rain Barrel Yard Art - they now have five artists who will be participating.
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Planting Seed to Read delivered one program before end-of-year and they will be prepared to start back up when school starts again.
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There have been no nominations yet for the Big Tree 2025 Contest.
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They wrote 14 News Releases, 6 Constant Contacts, and an article about Equine Operations in Farm & Dairy.
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Publications: Updating their brochures,
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79 Social Media posts with 9,273 people reached.
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118 technical assistance helping landowners with various issues.
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They received the 2025 Forestry Grant that they will use for the Chainsaw Safety Course. Motion acknowledged that they received the information.
Observer Note: This is a follow up note from last month’s meeting discussion on the upcoming Chainsaw Safety Class, on September 13, 2025. The class is now available for registration on their Upcoming Events & Workshops page, here. This Observer confirmed there is still room for more participants in this class. If someone is interested in submitting a nomination for the 2025 Big Tree Contest, the nomination form can be found on their homepage here. This year’s tree is the Sassafras Tree. The Big Tree Nomination deadline is August 1, 2025.
State Audit Results and STARS Certificate 4 Star - Highest Achievement in Open and Transparent Government - Ms. Shale reported a clean audit report from the Ohio State Auditor with no exceptions found. She and her team were very proud of their exemplary audit results and are displaying their certificate for visitors to view. It is noteworthy that they had budgeted to pay 40 hours of auditor time, but the office was so well organized, they were only billed for 19.5 hours for a total of $799.50.
Motions approved-
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MOTION Approved - District Technician Intern Job Description
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MOTION Approved - To Dispose of three desktop computers as they are obsolete
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MOTION Approved - Approve temporarily over 240 hours of accrued annual leave for Ms. Shale (Must be used by 10/1). Ms. Shale has been unable to use her accrued annual leave and has requested that the Board approve her to carry over her hours, which will be used before 10/1/2025.
GAIL PRUNTY, EDUCATION/COMMUNICATIONS SPECIALIST
Invasive Species Workshop summary:
Chuck Fletcher, a native plant expert, led this successful workshop. Ms. Prunty reported that 59 people attended the workshop where 50 Buckthorn Blasters (herbicide dobbers) and 30 $50 Gift Certificates to Avonlea Gardens were given away for the replacement of invasive species with a native plant. The costs of the workshop giveaways were paid for by a grant.
Meeting Adjourned at 8:39 am.
Next Board Meeting: Tuesday, August 12, 2025 - Geauga County Administrative Building: Geauga SWCD Office – 12611 Ravenwood Drive, Suite 240, Chardon, OH 44024.
More information available here.
Observer: Wendy Landry
Editor: Rooney Moy
Reviewer: Carol Benton
Date Submitted: July 10, 2025
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