Brookfield Township owns the field shown behind the administration building, which is at bottom left. Contributed photo.
When Brookfield trustees bought vacant property to the west of the administration building in 2000 to expand the township cemetery, but did not plan to develop it immediately, they opened it up to crop farming.
At first, no rental fee was charged, but the trustees now get about $350 to farm about eight of the 13.11 acres, said township Road Supt. Jaime Fredenburg.
For the time being, the property will not be farmed as the trustees have learned it’s illegal to make money from a tax-exempt property, said Trustee Dan Suttles.
Fredenburg said he likes that the property is farmed because it controls the growth of vegetation, levels it out and drains some of the wetter sections, and would favor an arrangement, such as giving up the tax-exempt status or allowing it to be farmed for free, that keeps it active.
Suttles said he doesn’t want to lose the tax-exempt status – he said it would be “cumbersome” for a future board of trustees to request tax-exempt status if the cemetery is ever developed – or pay the about $1,000 a year in taxes if they let the tax-exempt status fall off. He also said he does not want to jeopardize the township’s request for tax-exempt status for a parcel on Wood Street that would be used as an entrance to the cemetery.
Trustee Mark Ferrara said he would like to maintain the “win-win” status the property has now, but the trustees agreed not to have the property farmed while they continue to explore options.
Suttles later noted that he discussed the matter with a representative Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office, who recommended that the township abide by the county auditor’s recommendation that it not be farmed for rent.
Police Chief Aaron Kasiewicz has since asked the trustees if it would be OK to research placing a police shooting range on the property. While Suttles expressed reservations about the impact a shooting range would have on the neighborhood to the north of the property, he said he was not against research. Ferrara and Trustee Shannon Devitz said they liked the idea and encouraged Kasiewicz to bring back a proposal.
