'Show me the money!' Event organizers slow to pay
Area first responders are tired of not getting paid in a timely fashion, and that feud between them and Grand Lake Marathon organizers is coming to a head.
“We are going to have a sit down meeting with the event coordinator,” EMA Director Troy Anderson told board
members Thursday. “We’ve run into issues with him.”
About every year first responders who assist with the event
struggle to get paid by Ryan King, who runs the Can’t Stop Running
company that produces the Grand Lake Marathon.
“We have our meeting, he tells us to submit our invoices to cover our time, and then when it comes time to get paid you got to work for it to get it out of him,” Anderson said.
“We asked a couple of Mercer County departments, and one replied back, (saying) ‘we quit
billing because we never got paid,’” Anderson said.
It’s a frustrating situation. “Auglaize County gets little or next to nothing out of it other than putting in a lot of manpower to
monitor the roads, and block the traffic while these runners go through. Mercer County gets all the money,” Anderson said.
St. Marys City and St. Marys Township fire departments, the Auglaize County Sheriff’s Office, and the EMA plan to attend the meeting with King.
Anderson said organizers can “either find a better way of paying us, and quit arguing over our bills,
or just have your runners come to the Auglaize County line and turn
around and run back.”
Last year it took the Sheriff’s Office nine months to get paid; the EMA office saw payment after four months
“He doesn’t like the amount we bill,” St. Marys Fire Chief Doug Ayers said. Ayers and Anderson said they were only billing for their time.
With both the half marathon and the marathon ending in Celina, Mercer County sees most of the economic benefit.
“You get a lot of residents upset,” Anderson said.
For future marathons, Anderson would like to see road closures al-
low for businesses in Auglaize County to be open especially along Ohio 703. He noted businesses in Mercer County tend to stay open for the event.
Also during the board meeting, members learned at on Oct. 15, near Meier-barber and
Barber-werner roads, there was a rollover involving a truck carrying 9,600 gallons of propane. The 2021 Peterbuilt was driven by Michael Kinsman of Archbold, and multiple tow vehicles were required to remove it.
Anderson said he assisted with traffic for Say Boo to the Flu, and said they had about 10 cars go through in total.
On Sept. 11 a fire training seminar was held at Memorial High School in St. Mary. Anderson said they had 75 to 80 people participate.
Next year they have a Fire and EMS comedian speaker from Des Monies, Iowa coming in as part of their seminar.
On Oct. 19 a disaster preparedness seminar was held with a reported similar turnout to the training seminar with speakers discussing cyber security and active shooters scenarios among other topics.
Board members approved starting the process for a vote to increase the per capita assessment from 75 to 80 cents for EMA funding, as well as a 3 to 4 percent range for a salary increase during budget discussions.