Botkins works to make water better

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BOTKINS — The Botkins Village Council met Tuesday night to discuss improvements to the city’s water in several different ways.

The council voted to allow the installation of extra valves on the water line on South Street. They have one now and would be adding two more. The project will cost about $8,000 and is a much lower risk with having an outside company, Everett J Prescott Inc., coming in to do it.

Botkins Administrator Ryan Piche said they could do it in-house, but the risk would be much greater that a large portion of town wouldn’t have water for a while. With Everett J Prescott Inc. doing it, all water will remain on and they will avoid a boil order.

The council agreed to go ahead with this project, for one, because they think water is something very important to the tax payers of the city.

The council also approved the purchase of a water sampler for the Waste Water Treatment Plant so their readings could be more consistent and truer, because it will allow for sampling of the water at all different times of day, not just when ever they get around to sampling it.

They will be able to use those numbers to solve various problems with the water in the future. This piece of equipment will also soon be a requirement for all waste water treatment plants, Piche said, so it’s better to just get it now.

It will cost $4,800 before shipping, handling and installation. Piche said they do have the money for it, it will come from the D4 Account and the Sewer Capital Fund.

Another project at the water treatment plant that will need to be done soon has to do with the electrical box that brings in electricity. The wires are getting wet somehow and causing issues. The debate council now has is whether they should just replace that for about $5,000 or if they should upgrade all electric there for about $30,000.

Piche said if they upgrade later, they would just lose that $5,000 fix they have to do anyways. So he’s getting some quotes and will be bringing it up at the next meeting.

In other business the council approved the appointment of Ross Kohler to the Botkins Fire Department pending drug screening.

Council spoke about the subdivision coming to Botkins and all the annexation and steps they have to go through for it to become part of the village. The area will need to be surveyed and detailed out before paperwork can be filled out.

Whether or not the development will have a retention pond was also an item of discussion the council seemed to be in favor of.

Piche reported the upgrades to the softball field are looking good. He also reported that the farmer’s market is having a lot of success, even though the weather hasn’t been so favorable the past couple Friday afternoons.

He reported the sale of a city 2007 Ford F-150 on govdeals.com for $7,100. They put it up there hoping to cast a bigger net of potential buyers. They were hoping to get $5,000 for it and the trade-in value was about $4,500.

Piche announced that employee evaluations were completed recently. He said it will be something done from now on to keep track of everyone’s compensation and build concrete files for everyone.

Reach this writer at 937-538-4825; follow on Twitter @SDNAlexandraN

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