Oxford Village officials aren’t necessarily opposed to the idea of moving the municipal office to another spot within their 50-year-old building on W. Burdick St., they just believe there are bigger fish to fry.

“I think we’ve got our priorities mixed up,” said Councilwoman Maureen Helmuth. “This is not something I need to be thinking about right now.”

“I don’t know why we’re putting five minutes of thought into moving to another half of the building when we don’t even have staff to fill the positions that we currently have,” said Councilman Erik Dolan, referring to the village’s ongoing and thus far, fruitless search for a new manager and clerk-treasurer.

“I can’t even believe what I’m hearing and if the residents actually paid attention to what was being discussed here, they wouldn’t believe it, either.”

During a work session meeting held Oct. 24, council once again discussed the idea of fixing up the space that was occupied by the township parks and recreation department from 2002 until August of this year, and moving the village office there.

To help fund a potential office relocation, Interim Assistant Manager Drew Benson told council there’s $10,000 available in the building and utilities portion of the budget and there’s “no expectation of using all of that” for maintenance purposes.

Dolan wasn’t too keen on that idea.

“My understanding is we also have an archaic HVAC system that could go at any moment,” he said.

Dolan wondered what would happen if that system failed “in the middle of the winter.”

Benson said the village would have to look at the cost of either repairing or replacing the system.

“Do we know where that funding would come from (if) we took the funding out of the fund that it should come from?” Dolan asked.

There was no answer.

“We have a lot of ideas, but we don’t have any adequate, specific (method as to) how we’re going to pay for it,” Dolan said. “And I would like, personally, to completely put a stop to any discussion of moving until we can actually staff the organization first.”

Dolan wondered why this topic was even on the work session agenda.

“There have been certain people pushing for this move – I was not one of them – who wanted to see the staff in the bigger space,” Helmuth replied.

Village President Sue Bossardet explained this topic was on the table because much of the W. Burdick St. municipal complex, in use since 1967, is currently empty and the village is “just trying to figure out what we can do with it.”

She said “the whole east side of the building,” which served as the township hall for many years, has sat vacant since 2006. And now, the area in the middle of the building once occupied by the parks and rec. department is empty.

“We’re just trying to make use of this space,” Bossardet said. “I don’t want to see this space sit empty for another 12 years and have the building falling down amongst us. At some point, somebody’s got to make the decision, or we’re just going to let the center section sit, too.”

To Dolan, in the “best case scenario,” the village would be able to provide its staff with “the very best of everything,” including a bigger office.

“And I hope we get there,” he said.

However, the village can’t even fill its vacant positions right now and doing that must take precedence, in his mind. “Luxuries come after necessities,” Dolan said.

“I would like to not discuss this topic again until we make significant progress in staffing and until someone comes to me, specifically, with the (financial details regarding) what we’re going to use and what our contingency is if we take money out of the fund that we’re going to spend it from,” the councilman added.

Helmuth was of the same mind. “I just think there’s bigger things right now,” she said.

Helmuth noted she understands the office space issue is important to the village staff, but “I just can’t think about it right now.”

“We don’t know who the staff is going to be in a month,” Dolan remarked.

Councilman Joe Frost agreed with his fellow officials that moving the village office is “not a priority right at this moment.”

But he believes the village should look into finding tenants to rent some of the vacant space to keep the lights on and the building maintained.

“This is real estate and it’s an asset for the village, so if there’s vacant space in this building, its use should be maximized,” Frost said.