At their November 14 meeting, members of the Montpelier Village Council learned that the Ohio EPA Division of Environmental and Financial Assistance (DEFA) has awarded $2.3 million to the village towards the Wastewater Treatment Plant Project.
Village Manager Kevin Brooks reported, “I’m not sure if all of you are aware, but in the last month from DEFA we were awarded $2.3 million towards the Wastewater Treatment Project. It’s not a grant; it’s ‘principal forgiveness’. That’s the new, fancy way of saying that you’ve got a grant. We have been reviewing and entertaining proposals from engineers, and we will have a proposal for you to authorize on November 28. We need an engineering firm onboard now, because this principal forgiveness program is deadline driven. If you miss a deadline…you lose your money.” Four firms were approached, and three submitted bids for the project that has a targeted start date of March 2017.
“For the CSO (Combined Sewer Overflow) project, we were given $1.1 million in debt forgiveness, so we are moving that forward,” Brooks added. “It was a pretty good month in terms of getting some money into the community. We’re probably going to be talking about moving both of those projects forward on a really fast pace, because again, the money is deadline driven and if we fail to meet the deadlines, then they’ll pull the money and that’s not going to be a good day around here. Just so you know, the Wastewater Treatment Plant is a $3.1 million project, and to get $2.3 million…woo hoo!”
Mr. Brooks reported that he had a meeting with his counterpart from Holiday City, Mr. Gary Baker. He said that there have been some miscommunications and misconceptions that have cropped up, but noted that the meeting was very nice, and they both came away with the commitment to work together going forward.
Mr. Brooks also reported on the participation of the village in the Williams County Land Bank through the County Treasurer’s Office. “We pushed the envelope with the Treasurer’s Office. Mr. (Supervisor of Administrative Services, Kurt) Roan submitted some properties to them. We went through the paperwork. The Treasurer’s Office has been fully funded for 2016 through 2017. They have $125,000 to spend on the demolition of junk properties. If that money is spent, they anticipate on getting $250,000 for November 1 of 2017, through October 31 of 2018. We are going to pursue that program actively, and try to take advantage of that…so we can eliminate some of these troublesome properties throughout the village.”
Council suspended the rules of reading and adopted Resolution 1158, setting appropriations for 2017 at $20,490,687.00. Afterwards, Council adopted a pair of ordinances that allow for a change of the 1 percent income tax allocations from the current 55 percent operations and 45 percent capital improvements, to 70 percent operations and 30 percent capital improvements.
Prior to adjournment, Council retired into executive session for the discussion of employment of personnel, with no actions taken.
Timothy Kays can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com