T-L Photo/JOSIE BURKHART Brookside Village Council elects Councilwoman Paula Curtin as its new president at Tuesday evening’s meeting.

BROOKSIDE — Brookside Village Council elected Councilwoman Paula Curtin as the new council president at Tuesday evening’s meeting.

A different council member is elected as the president every year, Mayor Richard Kurner said, and one member rarely serves two years in a row. Mike Tully has been serving as the president for the past year.

Curtin was nominated, and then council members Roger Stewart, Wendy Anderson, Tully, Sarah Mudrick and Paul West unanimously voted to elect her president.

As president, Curtin will fill in for Kurner and preside over a meeting if he is absent. She will also take on some administrative work.

Curtin said she feels honored that council has faith in her to be president.

“I’m looking forward to accomplishing some work for the village,” she said. “Getting things off our to do list.”

Assistant Fire Chief Allan Ketzel II filled in for his son, Fire Chief Allan Ketzell III, at the meeting and came before council with some concerns regarding the village’s insurance company and the fire station/municipal building.

Two years ago, Brookside’s fire station had its floor partially collapse where the department had parked the fire engine and squad. The department has been parking its fire truck at A-1 Braden’s Towing since then.

The insurance company, Public Entities Pool of Ohio, told the village there had been no maintenance on the rebar of the floor, but Ketzell wants to now get a stipend for not using the building for emergency purposes for two years. Public Entities denied the village’s insurance claim because it said the rebar had not been maintained. Kurner questioned that because the rebar is inside the concrete, leaving him to wonder how to do maintenance on it.

Ketzell said he wants to send the insurance company a letter about the stipend, but Solicitor Richard Myser said the village will need to hire a structural engineer to look at the collapsed floor before he sends a letter to the insurance company requesting a stipend.

Kurner said council feels that because the insurance company sent a structural engineer to inspect the building and it passed the inspection, the company took the money for the premiums and should pay a stipend because the building cannot be used for emergency services.

The village is considering buying a property to store the fire truck at the Gypsum Express location at 56346 National Road because that company is moving to a new facility in Pennsylvania. Village leaders learned this after Mudrick visited the receptionist and asked if there was a slot available for the fire department to store the fire truck.

Afterward, Kurner researched who owns the property since the company is moving. He contacted Chris Duplaga, who owns it with his business partner, to discuss the village buying it. Duplaga said he’d be happy to help the fire department and said he would possibly sell the property to the village. Kurner said he will now look into it to see if it’s feasible.

While Ketzell came before council with that issue, Ohio Department of Transportation engineer Adam Lyton told council that he wishes to get a traffic light put back up at the intersection near Wilson Funeral Home.

He talked about accidents that could happen without the traffic light. Right now, there is a stop sign with flashing lights there.

Kurner said the majority of residents he’s talked to like the way it is now with the stop sign and don’t want a traffic light put up.

Mudrik made a motion to install a traffic light, but the motion died for lack of a second.

The reason for the traffic light being gone is because a truck struck and damaged it.

Council went into an executive session to discuss personnel matters.