JACKSON CENTER — It has been an exciting and busy year in the village of Jackson Centerwith many projects either completed, underway, and some just starting.
“The village also saw changes in the personnel in several departments,” said Administrator Bruce Metz. “Lt. Chuck Wirick was sworn in to serve as the next village police chief on Oct. 23. Water and Wastewater Superintendent Kevin Sailor retired after serving 43 years with the Village Water and Wastewater departments. Plant Operator Braden Lotz was promoted to fill the position of superintendent. Drew Sosby was hired onto the Water and Wastewater department on January 1st as an apprentice. Also hired was Dwaine Sosby to serve as Parks Superintendent. This was a new position created by Council to maintain the Village Parks.”
His report continues:
The village was saddened by the loss of several former longtime employees, Richard D. Sailor, the village’s first Administrator, Rosie Mullen, utility clerk, Bob Mitchell, street department, and Marvin Rostorfer, Village Council and Board of Public Affairs.
Project Bambi, the new traffic signal on West Pike is completed and is in use. The nearly $600,000 cost for this project was shared by ODOT, Jobs Ohio, Airstream and the village.
The beautiful school project is wrapping up and with this, the village has completed the Davis, Linden and South Street Project. The 1.384 million project included new water main, new storm lines, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, light poles and asphalt. The village was very fortunate to be able to do this project in correlation to the building of the new School.
Casey’s General Store broke ground in June and opened in 2018. The Verizon tower has been erected just north of the village limits on property owned by Dennis Lotz and was completed in November. NKTELCO purchased 533 N. Main St. and has installed a Fiber Hut for lines coming into our village with the hopes to start installing lines in 2018.
The first phase of the new park is nearly completed, irrigation is being installed on the soccer fields, trees are planted, and grass for the fields will be sown in the spring. The $200,000 project was constructed with $182,647 of grant funding and the remaining was a match of $17,353 from the village. The village received an additional grant for the trees in the park. There were 56 trees planted and funded by a $14,169 grant received from EcoSmart Choice. The additional $14,922.24 was village funds.
The detention/retention pond behind Airstream is complete with the exception of the installation of a pump to pump down the retention part of the pond. The 4.5-million-gallon pond is 2.4 mg (million gallon) detention (drains on its own) and 2.1 mg retention (needs pumped out). The $220,000 project was constructed with $180,000 of grant funding and $40,000 was village funds.
Construction is now finished on the Village Solar Field. The 2.34 MW Solar Field was started in October by Next Era Energy. The project is part of the AMP Solar Phase II Project. AMP (American Municipal Partners) has teamed with Next Era Energy to build up to 80 MW of solar electric generation facilities. The solar field is located at the end of Jerry Drive, directly behind Airstream. The 9-acre site will be made up of 6,894 solar panels harvesting the power of the sun. The village will be receiving about 20 percent of the power produced from the field. The extra power produced will be put back on the grid for other AMP communities in the project. The solar field will produce enough energy to power approximately 280 homes. The solar field started producing power on Dec. 20.
