Sunbury Meadows residents get 3-way stop at bus stop intersection

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Sun­bury Mead­ows Drive res­i­dent Angela Faust attended the Wednes­day, Novem­ber 28, Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil meet­ing because she and some of her neigh­bors are con­cerned about auto­mo­biles trav­el­ing at exces­sive speeds through their neighborhood.

Faust and her neigh­bors live close to the Sun­bury Mead­ows entrance on Ohio 3. They said res­i­dents liv­ing at the far end of Sun­bury Mead­ows Drive are trav­el­ing 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.

At a July 18 coun­cil ses­sion Sun­bury Mayor Tommy Hat­field promised the res­i­dents that he would give his per­sonal atten­tion to address­ing the issue. Fol­low­ing those sum­mer meet­ings the vil­lage admin­is­tra­tion began explor­ing pos­si­ble solu­tions to the speed­ing prob­lem, and sub­se­quently promised to install three-way stop signs near the school bus stop at the Sun­bury Mead­ows Drive and Mill Run Drive intersection.

At the Novem­ber 28 meet­ing Faust said the stop signs had not been installed at the inter­sec­tion; Sun­bury Mayor Tommy Hat­field said the vil­lage was work­ing on cor­rect­ing a sim­i­lar prob­lem on Fair­land Drive, and work­ing on the two sit­u­a­tions in par­al­lel was slow­ing the process down.

While most folks believe that no mat­ter what they do the wheels of gov­ern­ment grind slowly, some­times so slowly they appear to stand still, Faust dis­cov­ered that it does pay to stand up and speak.

Just seven days later, dur­ing last week’s (Wednes­day, Decem­ber 5) Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil meet­ing, Faust, et al, had their wish ful­filled with a first read­ing of Ordi­nance 2012–19 that, if approved, would estab­lish a three-way stop sign at the inter­sec­tion in question.

“We’re con­tin­u­ing to look at Fair­land Drive, but we did not want this thing held up,” Hat­field said. “We rec­om­mend three read­ings of this ordi­nance. Three read­ings gives res­i­dents time to com­ment on this, but we want to improve safety on that road.”

Sun­bury con­sult­ing engi­neer Wes Hall, CT Con­sul­tants, reported on the exte­rior and inte­rior inspec­tion of Sun­bury Town Hall’s roof.

“The sub-structure is in good con­di­tion, but the purlins, cedar shin­gles and metal roof have to come off,” Hall said. “The rafters are true oak 2 x 5’s that may need some point repair. You could install metal purlins, or sheet­ing on top of rafters. The inspec­tor is going to price a cou­ple of options.”

Hall said the gut­ters would need replaced because the cur­rent ones are res­i­den­tial size; and the inspec­tor didn’t see any mois­ture dam­age in the attic.

“It would prob­a­bly go out all in one bid,” Hall said. “But we will break down all quan­ti­ties on the items. We’ll com­pare life expectancy with cost. This type of build­ing you’ll want to put a long-lasting prod­uct on.”

Hall said full inspec­tion results and rec­om­men­da­tions would be pre­sented at a later meeting.

“We’d like to under­stand the return on invest­ment with dif­fer­ent mate­ri­als,” Hat­field said. “We know that cop­per is three times as expen­sive, but we want to know this is the last roof we put on here for at least 50 years.”

In other busi­ness, Parks & Safety Com­mit­tee chair Joe Gochenour asked coun­cil mem­bers to approve up to $2,500 for a ceme­tery bul­letin board at Sun­bury Memo­r­ial Park, paid for with Dru­gan Fund money.

Coun­cil mem­bers approved the request, con­tin­gent upon Dru­gan Fund approval.

Gochenour also noted that Sun­bury Nazarene Church would like to part­ner with the vil­lage on Free­dom Park entrance improve­ments, and use the Free­dom Park entrance as the main church park­ing lot entrance.

Hat­field said he did not believe any­one opposes that idea, and sug­gested that a dis­cus­sion take place between both parties.

While Brehm did not oppose the con­cept of a shared drive, he did cau­tion coun­cil mem­bers to be aware that polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sions have lim­ited prop­erty con­veyance rights.

Gochenour also reported that Janet Met­zler is resign­ing as an at-large mem­ber of the Parks & Safety Committee.

Hat­field asked any vil­lage res­i­dent inter­ested in fill­ing the posi­tion to call the Sun­bury Admin­is­tra­tion Office.

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 Dec 12 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.