By Sandy Rose Schwieterman
For the Sidney Daily News
MINSTER — The Minster village council approved measures to add new sidewalks along the edge of town and to resolve potential EPA fines for the village’s wastewater treatment plant.
A new sidewalk along State Route 119 between State Route 66 and Canal Street will begin construction this spring with the approval of a low bid of $205,206 by American Decorative Concrete of Greenville. A total of three companies bid on the project. It was passed via emergency measure, bypassing the usual three readings.
The village’s long-term problem with total dissolved solids in wastewater treatment will be remedied after approval of a bid of $831,256 by Moody’s of Dayton. The Dilution Well Development Project will involve the drilling of two new wells, with the extra water combining with wastewater output that will meet EPA standards. Village administrator Don Harrod said the project must be done by July 1, 2024 to avoid EPA fines. It was also passed via emergency vote.
An extra 1.006 acres of land will be added to the village with the approved annexation of the property of Tim and Shirley Shenk, who own the property along Seventh Street. The request was made so that the property could have access village utilities.
A second reading was approved of a resolution authorizing the village’s participation in the Ohio Department of Administrative Service’s Cooperative Purchasing Program for 2024 as well as a second reading of a resolution authorizing the sale of excess personal village property by internet sales.
Also approved via emergency resolution increasing appropriations in certain accounts/funds.
The county is changing their radio communications to a Multi-Agency Radio Communication System (MARCS). As a result, council approved the purchase of MARCS radios for the police department at a cost of $34,153. Also approved was a MARCS radio purchase for the fire department. The fire department radios are covered by a grant from the State Fire Marshal’s Department.
The village administrator’s report included some problems with the recent deep freeze.
Harrod said last Monday, the village experienced a water line break on a 6-inch water line on East Fourth Street between Garfield and Jefferson Street. When crews uncovered the line, they found a golf ball size hole in the bell of the pipe. He added that they also found that the pipe was bedded in soil not stone. Crews made the necessary repairs to the line and put it back into service.
Centerpointe Energy and Ritter Construction have started on a project to replace several steel gas lines with plastic from Lincoln Street to Cleveland Street and from Seventh Street to Third Street in the community. This project will take several months to complete.
He said three bids were opened on Thursday, Jan. 18, for the purchase of three electric transformers for the electric department. He said they are currently reviewing the bids documents and will have a recommendation to council at the next council meeting.
Work is nearly complete on the water tower project, he said. Both the garage door and the electrical generator have been installed. Work that remains is to remove the foundation footers from the old tower site. He said they will be doing a walk thru with the contractor in the next couple of weeks to identify a punch list of issues that need to be corrected.
Hohenbrink Excavating continues to work on the East Seventh Street -Paris Street project. They have removed all of the existing asphalt and have begun installing the storm sewer.
Harrod reported that the Ohio EPA is requiring all community water systems to develop a lead line survey. This survey needs to identify the type of material of each water line service to every property in the village. This survey must identify both the village’s portion of the water service and the property owner’s portion as well and must be completed by October 16, 2024. In order to implement this survey, crews from the Public Works and the Water Department will need to enter homes to identify the type of water line service so that they can complete the survey. For those properties that they need to enter, they will be notifying the building owners to schedule a time to inspect the water service. They plan to start these inspections in February.
Harrod also said the village has kicked off the sign-up for CivicPlus, the village’s new mass notification system. Civic Plus is a mass notification system that will allow the village to issue urgent notifications, emergency instructions, warnings and routine communications to subscribed residents via email, text messages and voicemail to keep people safe and informed. The main intention of the system is to keep the residents of the village better informed about such things as road closures, power outages, water line breaks, inclement weather or other events or emergencies that may impact the community. This program will allow the village to send out mass notifications, by text, voice or e-mail to those who sign up for the service. He said as of last Thursday, they have had approximately 350 people register for the service.
Finally, council approved receipts: $ 544,010.25 and invoices: $1,183,134.76.
The writer is a regular contributor to the Sidney Daily News.
