MINSTER – At their Tuesday night meeting, Minster Council heard about the next steps to begin the bid process for the Northwest Sanitary Sewer Project, anticipated to cost $2.4 million.
If the bidding process is successful, construction to install sewer lines down Second Street from Garfield to Canal streets is hoped to begin late this year and planned to be completed by Octoberfest next year. Don Harrod said because sewer lines will have to be laid up to 25 feet down, it will be necessary to reconstruct all curbs, gutters, and sidewalks along Second Street, with the property owners being assessed for this portion of this work. Aged waterlines would also be replaced.
It was agreed that a public hearing would be necessary before going to bids late this year. It was anticipated that the ordinance to allow the bid process would be passed as an emergency resolution in order to secure lower cost bids for winter work. The village currently as $1.2 million set aside for the project with an additional $232,600 of state Issue 1 funds available. Some of the additional funding will come from the assessments to property owners.
When completed, Harrod said that the project will relieve problems with flooding in homes along streets such as South Lincoln and South Hamilton streets. In meeting the cost of the project, Minster mayor Don Kitzmiller said they may have to put off some other projects until the future.
Another ordinance approved was a first a reading of regulations to control small cell technology installations in the village right of way. Harrod said that the four major wireless companies, such as Verizon soon will begin installing equipment to support 5G cell phone capability. House Bill 478 was passed to allow municipalities to control the location and appearance of the equipment. He cautioned, however, that the FCC had introduced legislation in September that would bar any barriers to installation of this technology, possibly taking away home rule on this issue.
Council also approved a second reading of an ordinance controlling the use of firearms within village limits. Two emergency ordinances were approved to transfer $75,000 from the General Fund to the Public Works Fund. Also, approved was a motion to seek bids for a new Wasterwater Plant sludge tank. It was anticipated the cost would be $92,000 to replace the 48 year old equipment. The council also approved the payment of $184,101.83 in invoice payments.
Tabled was a proposed ordinance to approve an enterprise zone agreement with Nidec Minster Corporation.
In his report to council, Harrod said bids for the Northwest Substation electrical equipment were opened on Thursday, Oct. 11. Encompass Engineering is currently reviewing the bids and expects to have a recommendation for council to consider at the next meeting. It was estimated that the project would cost between $1,587,000 and $1,622,000 to purchase the major equipment.
The administrator noted that the electric consumption for July, August and September were up by 11 percent over the same time period last year, with 39 million kilowatt hours used.
Harrod also said the new swing set for the Four Seasons Park will be installed this week. The unit which features a combination adult and toddler swing will be installed near the Barney playground equipment off of the main parking lot.
He reminded council that the Tax Levy Committee will hold its second public meeting to discuss the 3 mill fire and emergency levy on Wednesday, Oct. 24, at 7 p.m. at the Minster Safety Building.
Harrod said the Parks Department has already reseeded and fertilized both the Minster Machine Centennial Park and the Oktoberfest Park. This was completed last week once the tents were removed from both of those parks.
Finally, he said NKTELCO was installing new fiber in the Parkview and RoseBud Subdivisions. He said they have installed a new fiber line down state Route 66 and are now extending that into both of these subdivisions.
