SIDNEY — Members of Sidney City Council’s gathered Monday evening at the fire department’s newly finished Nancy Adams Training Center for their monthly workshop session where they held a virtual capital tour of various city improvements.
The capital improvements tour began just outside of the training center with the police department’s newly acquired tactical response vehicle on display. The purpose of this type of vehicle is to transport the tactical response team (TRT) to and from missions and to potentially serve as a command post in dangerous, high risk or elevated situations. Police Chief Will Balling said Captain Bill Shoemaker, Sgt. Tony Cunningham and Sgt. Jeremy Lorenzo conducted research resulting in the purchase of a shell of a vehicle that was customized to meet the requirements of the department’s TRT for just under $50,000. Balling said most vehicles of this type typically run upward of $180,000.
Lorenzo will be taking over as the TRT commander in October and is most familiar with the features, so he presented the vehicle to council. Lorenzo said it could comfortably hold up to 14 people with full tactical gear. He pointed out various compartments that may store additional ammunition and also serve as a bench for the team to sit on, and to the walls holding numerous tools such as lock/bolt cutters, a battering ram, a flash-bang pole among other items. The van has its own power source for periods of extended time on location. It has flashers, a siren and a microphone speaker function to make announcements.
The Nancy Adams Training Center is also one of the capital improvements that was viewed during the tour. Fire Chief Brad Jones said the updated classroom for the region’s first responders was made possible through a “generous donation by the Adams family” and that “a lot of thought went into it.”
The training center is complete with a live link to wireless connections, and substations — if the classroom is not hands-on — so students in other locations can easily interact with the instructor regardless of location, because “response times matter.” The camera in the back of the classroom allows a two-way view of the students at their location to feel like they are physically present at the instructor’s location. A white board which is also a “smart board” along the front wall has numerous capabilities for power point demonstrations, as well as serving as a regular dry erase board.
Jones said the fire department has four ambulances, and that one is currently being refurbished. When it returns, the three front-line ambulances will all have been updated and refurbished once. They expect to have to replace the oldest unit in 2019.
The update on the city’s streets was given by Engineering Manager Randy Magato who reported about several ongoing and upcoming projects. They include:
• 2016 ODOT urban paving program. Street repairs are in the gutter and curb repair phase that is 80 percent complete. Milling and resurfacing of streets will begin shortly after the curb work is finished, likely in early July; the deadline for completion is Oct. 28.
• Vandemark Road and Industrial Drive traffic signal should be fully operational as of June 7. The project is almost complete.
• Port Jefferson Road reconstruction project has completed the restoration of the yards. The utility adjustments are underway and the final lift of asphalt with in the next week.
• The Fielding Road construction continues with the sanitary sewer lateral and sanitary sewer main line installation. The projected completion date is Oct. 14.
• Starrett Run improvements at Water Street, Walnut Avenue and Fair Road will replace the existing bridge, remove the top slab of the drainage way, rebuild the ditch walls, and install guardrail and fencing. This is an ongoing project, but the intersection is expected to reopen to traffic by late July.
• State Route 47 safety improvements phase II is underway with the underground utility installations and relocations in preparation for the new signal installations and relocation if Wayfarer Court. The Frisch’s sign relocation has been completed and they are in the process of the foundation work for the signal mast arm post. Deadline for completion is Sept. 30.
• The sidewalk program is gearing up; property owners received notices in January and have until July 1 to complete repairs themselves.
• The Michigan Street bridge replacement over CSX Railroad is on schedule and has a deadline of July 31. The existing bridge has been removed and the work on the new bridge deck continues.
• The Michigan Street bridge replacement over Starrett Run will begin in early September and is expected to be completed by the end of October.
Utilities Director Larry Broughton presented the final portion of the capital tour covering the city’s water projects, including:
• The restoration of the nine-acre lime lagoon to bring it back to original condition requires removing lime sludge and the re-sloping and leveling of banks. This is a $6.9 million project that will go out for bids in late June and may take up to a year to complete.
• The city’s well field raw water transmission line is 39 percent complete and includes the installation of a 96 inch pipe that “takes care of a lot of standing water issues.”
• Broughton showed council a three minute video of a half-hour-long process of the boring of a pipe at Interstate 75, as well as another video giving updates on the well fields improvements.
Broughton said that this project is coming along nicely as it had previously required a four-wheeler to access the site, and now they have the creation of a new deep-based driveway to reach the area. They have installed concrete walls around the wells and created better drainage, as well as new piping a power poles. It is an ongoing project.
“It is a huge project out there and we are really making a lot of progress,” said Broughton.
• He also discussed the ongoing plan for the wastewater plant expansion.
Council also reviewed the upcoming Zoning Board/Planning Commission Agenda for Monday, June 20, 2016, and reviewed prospective future city council agenda items for the next 30 days.
