Residents getting action on speeders

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Dur­ing the Wednes­day, July 11, Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil meet­ing, sev­eral Sun­bury Mead­ows Drive res­i­dents were in cham­bers to ask coun­cil mem­bers if they could do any­thing to slow traf­fic on their street.

The con­cerned res­i­dents live close to the Sun­bury Mead­ows entrance on Ohio 3. They said res­i­dents liv­ing at the far end of Sun­bury Mead­ows Drive are trav­el­ling along the 25 mph road at speeds up to 40 mph, there are chil­dren in the neigh­bor­hood, and there have been close calls in the past. They said when res­i­dents yell at dri­vers to slow down many of them respond with obscene ges­tures, even when chil­dren are present; and in at least one case a phys­i­cal threat was made.

The res­i­dents said they would pre­fer to have three-way stop signs installed at neigh­bor­hood inter­sec­tions to slow traf­fic, and also stop signs and marked cross­walks at the development’s two exist­ing school bus stops where Sun­bury Mead­ows Drive inter­sects with Mill Run Drive and at the Saf­fron intersection.

Sun­bury Vil­lage Admin­is­tra­tor Dave Mar­tin explained that the Ohio Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (ODOT) has rules about using stop signs for traf­fic con­trol. Mar­tin said that the vil­lage could have the inter­sec­tions exam­ined by the vil­lage engi­neer for safety issues.

Sun­bury Mayor Tommy Hat­field promised the res­i­dents that he would give his per­sonal atten­tion to address­ing the issue.

Fast-forward to last Wednesday’s vil­lage coun­cil meet­ing when Sun­bury Mead­ows Drive res­i­dent Angela Foust was in cham­bers to thank coun­cil mem­bers for address­ing the issue.

Foust said she has noticed more police patrols in the area, and under­stood that there were dis­cus­sions about putting a three-way stop sign at the Mill Run Drive and Sun­bury Mead­ows Drive intersection.

“If you come to coun­cil and speak I guess peo­ple do lis­ten and things get done,” Foust said.

Hat­field said slow­ing traf­fic down to the speed limit in a vil­lage res­i­den­tial neigh­bor­hood is some­thing that, in his words, coun­cil is happy to do.

Hat­field also said that Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Super­in­ten­dent Steve Mazzi and assis­tant super­in­ten­dent Gary Bar­ber will craft a let­ter to ODOT express­ing con­cerns about the safety of school chil­dren along that stretch of roadway.

Vil­lage of Sun­bury Tree & Land­scape Com­mis­sion mem­ber Janet Met­zler reported that the tree com­mis­sion is hold­ing a fundraiser at Ace Hard­ware in the park­ing lot food vend­ing trailer from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Sat­ur­day, July 28. Hot dogs and soft drinks will be avail­able on a dona­tion basis, with pro­ceeds going towards tree replace­ment costs and vil­lage beau­ti­fi­ca­tion projects.

Dur­ing his report to coun­cil, vil­lage admin­is­tra­tor Dave Mar­tin said that street depart­ment crews are con­tin­u­ing with crack seal­ing vil­lage streets. They have com­pleted Har­ri­son Street, Rain­bow Avenue, Mid­dle­view Drive, Southview Drive and Wal­nutview Drive. The only street they have left to com­plete on this year’s sched­ule is Bur­rer Drive.

“The sum­mer part-time help has been work­ing on weed trim­ming in JR Smith Park and along the creek adja­cent to the Ohio Fallen Heroes Memo­r­ial and Evening Park,” Mar­tin added.

Mar­tin said he would meet with Fred Holmes from Vol­un­teer Energy on July 19 to begin the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Com­mis­sion of Ohio cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process for nat­ural gas aggre­ga­tion; and he will sub­se­quently meet with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Bor­der Energy to go through the same process for elec­tric­ity aggregation.

Mar­tin also said there’s a pos­si­bil­ity of get­ting all of the village’s storm warn­ing sirens updated using grant money. He said that Delaware County EMA would help with the grant appli­ca­tion process, but the vil­lage must com­mit to its share of the cost before the process begins.

Mar­tin also reported that the vil­lage received a $158,000 check from Domin­ion Homes for one half of its com­mit­ted 2012 sewer tap pur­chase for the year; a Cheshire Road res­i­dent called about raw sewage in a ditch (it was dis­cov­ered that a homeowner’s aer­a­tor was not func­tion­ing prop­erly, and the home is out­side the vil­lage lim­its); and there was a water main break on Evening Street.

Vil­lage Con­sult­ing Engi­neer Wes Hall, CT Con­sul­tants, reported that the chem­i­cal build­ing project at the village’s waste­water treat­ment plant is com­plete and the plant is meet­ing the Ohio Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency’s new plant efflu­ent phos­pho­rous limits.

Hall said the final plan has been approved for the Ohashi-Technica build­ing addi­tion, but Ohashi has placed the project on hold; and most of the VFW build­ing addi­tion is com­plete with only some site work and park­ing lot mod­i­fi­ca­tions needed.

Ohio Pub­lic Works Com­mis­sion (OPWC) grants will be due in Octo­ber, Hall said. He is work­ing on a 2013 street repair list that might qual­ify for OPWC grant money and asked that it be placed on the August Ser­vices Com­mit­tee meet­ing agenda.

Hall also said the $24,000 Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Block Grant for 12 ADA-compliant curb ramp replace­ments on north side of the vil­lage will go out for bid in Sep­tem­ber. The grant stip­u­lates that the project must be com­pleted by Decem­ber 31.

When asked about new stairs for the JR Smith Park announc­ers build­ing, Hall said the stairs would require state approval because they pro­vide ingress and egress to a pub­lic facility.

“We would need to pro­duce draw­ings that meets state code, or buy a pre­fab­ri­cated set of stairs that meets code,” Hall said.

Coun­cil mem­bers approved pay­ing a $4,010 water tap fee to DelCo Water for 479 South Old 3-C High­way, a.k.a. South Colum­bus Street. Delco pro­rated the tap fee to when it took over the village’s water sys­tem; the vil­lage will turn the tap over to the property’s new owner.

Sunbury’s web­site is located at sunburyvillage.com.

Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil meets the first and third Wednes­day of every month at 7:30 p.m., third floor coun­cil cham­bers, Sun­bury Town Hall. Coun­cil com­mit­tees meet one hour before reg­u­larly sched­uled coun­cil ses­sions. All vil­lage coun­cil and coun­cil com­mit­tee meet­ings are open to the public.

Posted by Gary Henery on Jul 25 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.