Council moves forward on 2013 street paving project

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Dur­ing last Wednesday’s (Octo­ber 3) Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil meet­ing, Sun­bury Con­sult­ing Engi­neer Wes Hall, CT Con­sul­tants, said he mod­i­fied the village’s 2013 Ohio Pub­lic Works Com­mis­sion Grant request to improve the village’s chances of get­ting a street repair grant.

In August coun­cil mem­bers Tom Zalewski and Len Weath­erby casu­ally exam­ined vil­lage streets, with a more in-depth review by Hall.

Hall brought a list of poten­tial street repairs to the Sep­tem­ber 5 coun­cil meet­ing, com­plete with place­holder cost esti­mates, for coun­cil review; and asked coun­cil mem­bers to come to a con­sen­sus for the 2013 paving list because the 2013 OPWC grant request dead­line was Octo­ber 5.

Coun­cil mem­bers agreed to keep the entire project at $400,000, take out a $50,000 zero per­cent OPWC loan, request a $250,000 OPWC grant, and spend $100,000 from the vil­lage streets fund as a grant match.

“I mod­i­fied the Ohio Pub­lic Works Com­mis­sion grant a bit to score two extra points,” Hall said. “I changed it to $75,000 local con­tri­bu­tion to the project, increased the zero per­cent loan to $75,000, and dropped the grant amount to $225,000.”

Hall said the zero per­cent $75,000 loan has a 10-year repay­ment sched­ule, with no early repay­ment restrictions.

Streets that Hall rec­om­mended for the 2013 paving list are Sedg­wick Avenue, Crowl Drive, South Ver­non Street from Granville to Colum­bus Street, Case Street, McGill Street and Rain­bow Avenue east of High Street.

Hall said the vil­lage would receive an addi­tional point advan­tage if the project design and spec­i­fi­ca­tions were com­plete and sealed before the grant appli­ca­tion was sub­mit­ted; that the OPWC point advan­tage comes from know­ing the vil­lage is seri­ous about the project and ready to move forward.

At their Sep­tem­ber 5 ses­sion coun­cil mem­bers approved spend­ing $8,000 to design and spec the paving list.

Par­en­thet­i­cally, the 2012 street repairs recently com­pleted exceeded the spend­ing author­ity of the vil­lage with­out going out to pub­lic bid.

By law when the project was approved the vil­lage would have had to go out to pub­lic bid if the project cost exceeded $25,000. The project cost was esti­mated at $22,419; a coun­cil motion not to exceed $22,500 was approved.

Sev­eral last-minute small projects were added while Colum­bus Asphalt was in the vil­lage, notably a $1,138 repair on Bur­rer Drive and $3,437 in repairs on Stelzer Court, bring­ing the project total to $27,075.

Vil­lage solic­i­tor David Brehm reviewed the facts and agreed that noth­ing was inten­tion­ally done to avoid going out to pub­lic bid.

Coun­cil mem­bers approved a motion to pay Colum­bus Asphalt $4,575 to even up the account.

In Sep­tem­ber Ohio changed the project limit for going out to pub­lic bid to $50,000. In the future the vil­lage can spend up to $49,999 before hav­ing to go through the lengthy pub­lic bid process.

Hall also reported that the Com­mu­nity Devel­op­ment Block Grant curb ramp project on the north side of the vil­lage should be under­way at press time, and take two weeks to complete.

The project involv­ing 12 curb ramps is 100 per­cent grant funded.

Coun­cil mem­bers approved Res­o­lu­tion 2012–15, approv­ing the Delaware, Knox, Mar­ion, Mor­row Solid Waste Man­age­ment Dis­trict Plan Update.

“This doesn’t cost the vil­lage any­thing,” said vil­lage admin­is­tra­tor Dave Mar­tin. “The plan increases the amount of recy­cling to decrease the amount of solid waste in landfills.”

Mar­tin said the plan is for over the next 20 years.

“They need at least 60 per­cent of the polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sions in the solid waste dis­trict to approve it or it has to scrapped and started over again,” Mar­tin said.

Because DKMM needed a response by Octo­ber 20, coun­cil mem­bers sus­pended the rules, approved emer­gency lan­guage con­tained in the res­o­lu­tion, and approved the resolution.

“Sun­bury is the largest con­trib­u­tor of recy­clable mate­ri­als of all the places where DKMM places recy­cling bins,” Mar­tin added. “The next largest place only col­lects half as much as we do. Our seven dump­sters are emp­tied three times a week, and they’re full when they’re emptied.”

Mar­tin also reported that the Vil­lage of Sun­bury Tree & Land­scape Com­mis­sion will host a Tree Plant­ing Sem­i­nar from 10 a.m. to 12 noon on Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 20, in Sun­bury Town Hall. State of Ohio Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources Divi­sion of Forestry Urban For­rester Lisa Bow­ers will lead the seminar.

Mar­tin said the sem­i­nar is being held at this time of year because trees are most suc­cess­fully planted when they are dormant.

Mar­tin reported that the fur­nace at the street depart­ment garage has been replaced for $3,100.

“Main­te­nance Depart­ment Super­vi­sor Rob Gor­ley has been with the vil­lage for 28 years, and he said that fur­nace was old when he started,” Mar­tin said.

Coun­cil mem­bers approved a $4,304 pur­chase order to repair a hydraulic leak in Town Hall ele­va­tor; and a paper-in paper-out $17,909 PO for the CDBG Grant curb ramp project.

Posted by Gary Henery on Oct 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.