Northwood council introduces new K-9 officer

The Northwood City Council opened its Feb. 27 meeting with a very important introduction - the police department’s new K9, Odin.
       
Odin, a Belgian Malinois who is just shy of two years old, is trained in detecting narcotics. He was purchased through opioid settlement money and sponsored through the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
       
Trained in detecting methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine, as well as all the derivatives of those drugs, Odin is also certified in tracking, so if the Northwood police have a foot pursuit suspect, he can help. Or he can assist if a child or elderly patient wanders off, and he does article searches, where if someone ditches evidence, he can help find it.
       
Odin graduated at the end of October, and he has been deployed 24 times on traffic stops. Of those, he indicated the presence of narcotic odor 11 times. In some of those, nothing was found, but several of them had methadone or suboxone, which are legal prescriptions, but generally to people who are opiate users.
       
So, the odor was there, but the drugs didn’t happen to be at the time, which means Odin wasn’t necessarily wrong in his detection.
       
Odin’s vest was donated by Molly Tomaszewski in memory of her late husband, Gene.
       
“I was more than happy to do that,” Tomaszewski said. “I figure the officers are well-protected. Odin is our officer. He needs to be protected, too.”
       
Tomaszewski also made an offer to fund trading cards for Odin, which is where the department gives cards to people Odin meets on the street, kids especially, that contain pictures of the K9 along with all his stats and information.
       
“We’re going to get those ordered,” she said. “We’re going to work on that.”
       
In committee news, an economic development meeting was scheduled for March 27 at 6 p.m. The recreation board had to cancel February’s meeting due to weather, but they will meet March 12 at 6 p.m. at the Northwood Community Center.
       
Council members Pat Huntermark, Dean Edwards and Jim Barton recently attended the Northwood Community Center’s Dueling Piano’s event, which was said to have been fun with a really good turnout. They raised almost $7,000 for the June 6 Palooza in the Park fireworks.
       
In the mayor’s report, a motion passed to recommend Paula Radocy to serve on the board of zoning appeals.
       
City administrator, Kevin Laughlin, announced the closure of a deal with Jeep Country Federal Credit Union at The Enclave was delayed due to an illness. The city is expected to net $155,892 of the $175,000 sale price and now plans to close sometime the week of March 3.
       
A motion then passed to allow the Northwood Community Investment Corporation to retain the proceeds from that sale to act as seed money for operations and other projects.
       
In the city engineer’s report, it was noted that The Enclave’s ditch enclosure contractor has completed all storm sewer installations and filling of the ditch. They’re still working on some final grading items.
       
The next Committee of the Whole meeting will be March 13 at 6:30 p.m., just prior to the regular council meeting at 7 p.m.