Galena Village Council organizes for 2013

The Vil­lage of Galena held two Coun­cil meet­ings in Jan­u­ary, an orga­ni­za­tional meet­ing and a reg­u­lar monthly meet­ing. David Adams was elected to serve as Coun­cil pres­i­dent. Stan Swisher was reap­pointed to a new three-year term on the Zon­ing and Plan­ning Com­mis­sion and com­mit­tee appoint­ments were made.

Coun­cil appointed Jeanna Bur­rell as its new Vil­lage admin­is­tra­tor. Bur­rell has served as Galena’s admin­is­tra­tive assis­tant, assis­tant pub­lic ser­vice direc­tor, and interim vil­lage admin­is­tra­tor. She comes to the job with a decade of expe­ri­ence with the Vil­lage and rewrote the Village’s mas­ter plan in 2010.

Bur­rell was also appointed deputy zon­ing inspec­tor. She has more than a decade of expe­ri­ence in zon­ing and plan­ning hav­ing served as a char­ter mem­ber of the Kingston Town­ship Zon­ing Com­mis­sion; as the zon­ing sec­re­tary who assisted in writ­ing the ini­tial town­ship zon­ing res­o­lu­tion and com­pre­hen­sive land use (mas­ter) plan; and estab­lished the zon­ing office. She also served as the Kingston Town­ship Zon­ing Com­mis­sion chair­woman and assisted in later revi­sions to the zon­ing res­o­lu­tion and mas­ter plan.

Prior to join­ing the Village’s staff, Bur­rell also had 15 years of expe­ri­ence in pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion and served as the pub­lic rela­tions direc­tor on the president’s staff for 12 years at Mar­ion Tech­ni­cal Col­lege. She han­dles the Village’s pub­lic rela­tions efforts with news releases, a monthly newslet­ter, and the web site and also is the edi­tor for the Mar­burn Acad­emy Pan­ther Pride newslet­ter and the Kingston News.

Coun­cil reap­pointed Marty Mazzie as fis­cal offi­cer; Michelle Dearth as assis­tant fis­cal offi­cer; Dave LaValle as zon­ing inspec­tor, prop­erty main­te­nance offi­cial and flood­plain admin­is­tra­tor; Sally Hop­per as Zon­ing and Plan­ning Com­mis­sion clerk; and Ken Mol­nar as solic­i­tor. Josh Cheru­bini was appointed in Decem­ber as main­te­nance employee for a 90-day pro­ba­tion­ary period. A 2013 cal­en­dar was also estab­lished and Coun­cil passed tem­po­rary 2013 bud­get appro­pri­a­tions of $937,725.

After a third read­ing on an ordi­nance, Coun­cil voted to increase sewer use fees 3 per­cent. The next bill was sent out Feb­ru­ary 1 for $53.64 per month ($160.92/quarter) for res­i­den­tial cus­tomers. Any­one doing auto­matic pay­ments should adjust their pay­ment amounts.

Coun­cil passed res­o­lu­tions to apply for a Clean Ohio Trails Fund grant to pave a sec­tion of the Galena Brick Trail and improve the Lit­tle Wal­nut Creek Bridge. This would com­plete a sec­tion of the Ohio to Erie Trail through the Vil­lage. They also passed an ordi­nance to lease a room in the Galena Vil­lage Hall to the newly-formed Galena His­toric Foundation.

Coun­cil passed annual ordi­nances approv­ing the Ohio Basic Code as the Village’s Code of Ordi­nances and cre­at­ing an exemp­tion allow­ing agri­cul­tural landown­ers with 40 or more acres to hunt. Res­o­lu­tions were approved to dis­card obso­lete equip­ment and to des­ig­nate the Delaware County Bank as the offi­cial pub­lic depos­i­tory for the Village’s active deposits.

Fol­low­ing an exec­u­tive ses­sion to dis­cuss real estate, Coun­cil passed an ordi­nance to adver­tise for bids to sell or lease the Village’s munic­i­pal build­ing on the square at 9 West Colum­bus Street. Coun­cil set a min­i­mum price of $190,000 for sale and a min­i­mum of $1,100 per month to lease the build­ing with the lessee also pay­ing taxes, insur­ance and utilities.

Vil­lage Admin­is­tra­tor Jeanna Bur­rell pre­sented an annual report recap­ping accom­plish­ments of 2012 that included:

• An Amer­i­cans with Dis­abil­i­ties (ADA) com­pli­ant bath­room was added to the Galena Vil­lage Hall as well as fire escape safety, elec­tri­cal and light­ing improve­ments. Asbestos was removed from a mechan­i­cal room and ter­mites were treated. The stage was recon­fig­ured and a sound and record­ing sys­tem was added to the new Coun­cil Cham­bers. Walls were patched and painted, new floor­ing was added in some areas, lower level floors were painted, and the entire build­ing was wired for new tech­nol­ogy. The first Coun­cil meet­ing was held in the build­ing in Octo­ber and staff moved into offices in Novem­ber. The Vil­lage was also noti­fied that its appli­ca­tion was approved for a Com­mu­nity Block Devel­op­ment Grant to add ADA access to the lower level.

• The Galena His­tor­i­cal Foun­da­tion was cre­ated as a stand-alone entity with John Bland serv­ing as pres­i­dent. Bland plans to donate his­tor­i­cal items to the foun­da­tion which will lease a room in the Vil­lage Hall. Vol­un­teers are encour­aged to join the new organization.

• Phase 3 of the Miller Park train-themed play­ground equip­ment was installed. Swing sets were cut down to lower heights in both parks to be in com­pli­ance with new fall zone safety require­ments. Bat­ting cages and a well house were com­pleted for the irri­ga­tion sys­tem at Ruffner Park. Seventy-five per­cent of these projects’ costs were funded by the Preser­va­tion Parks of Delaware County’s Com­mu­nity Parks Improve­ment Grant (CPIG). CPIG funds were also approved for the final phase of the Miller Park play­ground for 2013 which includes a spi­ral slide as well as pic­nic tables and bike racks.

• An Ohio Pub­lic Works Com­mis­sion (OPWC) grant/loan with $250,000 in grant funds and $137,266 in a zero per­cent loan was approved for the $387,266 Phase 3 recon­struc­tion of Wal­nut Street with side­walks from High to Church streets. The sur­vey and design is com­plete and bids will be adver­tised soon. The Vil­lage hopes bids are favor­able to build a per­me­able paver street to han­dle storm water.

• The Vil­lage col­lab­o­rated with Big Wal­nut School admin­is­tra­tors on sur­vey issues related to the Big Wal­nut School admin­is­tra­tion prop­erty. The schools plans to trade land at the inter­sec­tion of Wal­nut and Har­ri­son streets needed for the Phase 4 relo­ca­tion of that inter­sec­tion in exchange for the Vil­lage vacat­ing build­ing encroach­ments on Wal­nut Street.

• The Vil­lage has worked with the Delaware County Engineer’s Office and util­ity com­pa­nies in prepa­ra­tion for the county’s Sun­bury Road bridge replace­ment sched­uled for April through Novem­ber. The Vil­lage worked suc­cess­fully to get a bike lane and new street lights added to the bridge.

• The Vil­lage worked with Sun­bury to set up a pub­lic meet­ing with Amer­i­can Elec­tric Power (AEP) to dis­cuss sup­ply prob­lems and reli­a­bil­ity. AEP is study­ing mov­ing the Vil­lage to another, smaller circuit.

• Staff cleaned up after four major wind­storms within a one-month period.

• The Vil­lage par­tic­i­pated in the plan­ning process and Coun­cil approved the Mid-Ohio Regional Plan­ning Commission’s (MORPC) Big Wal­nut Water­shed Plan­ning Partnership’s plan.

• Eight new homes were under con­struc­tion in 2012.

• Galena worked with the Ohio Water Resources Council/Balanced Growth Ohio on rewrit­ing its sub­di­vi­sion code into a low impact devel­op­ment code. A team of experts was assem­bled to assist in the process which is still under way.

• Trin­ity Homes received a three-year exten­sion for the Miller Farm development.

• Zon­ing hear­ings were held and an amended Zoar Devel­op­ment Plan for prop­erty down­town was approved.

• Prop­er­ties were inspected and sev­eral prop­erty main­te­nance and zon­ing vio­la­tions were issued in the sec­ond half of 2012. A great deal of time has gone into try­ing to bring these prop­er­ties into com­pli­ance includ­ing legal reme­dies for two properties.

• The 2012 year ended under budget.

• The exclu­sive res­i­den­tial trash and recy­cling con­tract with Big-O Refuse was extended into 2013.

• The Village’s Spe­cial Events Com­mit­tee spon­sored the always pop­u­lar Easter Egg Hunt, Ice Cream Social, Hal­loween Cos­tume Con­test, Tree Light­ing and Santa Claus events.

• The Greater Galena Civic Association’s Sum­mer­fest was again a big suc­cess bring­ing thou­sands of peo­ple to Galena for a fun day.

Posted by Gary Henery on Feb 6 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.