By: Timothy Kays
Meeting via video conference on the evening of April 20, members of the Bryan City Council approved a three-year deal providing School Resource Officer (SRO) services for the Bryan City School District.
Under suspended rules of reading, Council passed Ordinance #16-2020 authorizing Mayor Carrie Schlade to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) agreement with the Bryan City School District to provide security for Bryan City Schools, and authorizing the position for an SRO.
Mayor Schlade addressed the changes that were made to the MOU, saying, “The most significant change you will get is the emergency clause. It starts where both parties agree that should a state of emergency being declared by the President or Governor which closes schools, that was something that we needed to put in there, given our current pandemic situation, to clear that up.”
“I will tell you that our officer is now back on road patrol. There was another piece in there where if there were some kind of FMLA, the Chief and the Superintendent could basically make a temporary agreement to deal with that situation. I will tell you I know it was important to Council that the Chief, myself, Superintendent, administration and SROs met frequently. We did do that until the close of school. Since then we’ve only done it one more time where Superintendent Savage, Chief Chapa and I met regarding this MOU.”
“As you all know, (School Superintendent) Mrs. Savage did announce that in December, she’s going to retire. So she and I both discussed, we don’t know who the new superintendent will be. We both feel, and so does (Police) Chief Chapa, that this agreement is working. It is helping with the students, the discipline and the lack of threats.”
“We did see a good benefit from having this SRO position, and we were hopeful that Council and the School Board would agree to maintain it. We are renewing it a little early for that three-year period, just based on the retirement that’s going to come through the school.”
“It seems to be working,” said Chief Chapa. “We haven’t had any incidents with it to this point. It’s new to everybody, and we were working our way through it when we signed it, so it seems to be working for us right now.”
Council approved Resolution #18-2020, providing for interfund cash advances from the to 0.5 Percent Income Tax Fund of $180,037.86, and $69,189.14 from the Water Fund to the Industrial Park North Project Fund. The total amount of $249,227 will be reimbursed from the Ohio Department of Transportation upon the project’s completion.
Council also approved a measure providing for additional interfund transfers of $75,281.34 from the 0.5 Percent Income Tax Fund and $28,930.86 from the Water Capital Reserve Fund to the Industrial Park North Project Fund.
$300,000.00 was transferred from the 1% Income Tax Fund to the General Fund for general spending purposes, $150,000 from the 1% income tax fund to the Street Department Fund for general spending purposes, and $350,000 from the 0.5 Percent Income Tax Fund to the Capital Improvement Fund for ongoing projects.
Ordinance #14-2020, providing for annual appropriations for the City of Bryan for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020, was passed by Council. “This is an appropriations request for the…Industrial North Project Fund for the project construction for the street for $155,319.20,” explained Clerk of Council, Laura Rode, “…and appropriation for the water portion of the project of $58,120, for total amount appropriated for that project of $213,439.20.”
“It’s also an appropriation request for the General Fund Parks Department for facilities maintenance for $2,000, and that is due to some donations being received from the Bryan Little Bears, Bryan Baseball Association, and the swim team.” The total amount of appropriations requested was $215,439.20.
Council approved Ordinance #15-2020, authorizing Mayor Schlade to enter into a contract with Bryan Excavating LLC for the project known as the 2020 Street Improvements for Bryan North Industrial Park Connecting Bement Street and Paige Street.
“Laurie did several appropriations and other items before to predicate this project,” said City Engineer Brian Wieland, “…but I did receive two bids, one from Bryan Excavating and one from Vernon Nagle, Incorporated. Vernon Nagle was about $20,000 higher than Bryan Excavating.”
“The low bid was around $353,000. My estimate was $391,000. As Laurie noted earlier, we’re going to get about $249,000 back as grant funds on this project. I did reach out to ODOT to make sure that all the funds were still intact, and they were. This was last year’s budget money, which is still in place. So we’re okay to proceed with the project and still get the money back. It’s a joint project between the city and utility. We’re doing streets, sewers, and some water line.” Wieland is hopeful that the project will be wrapped up by the middle of summer.
Council approved a request from Fire Chief Bruce Siders that Firefighter/EMT Drew A. Short be placed in a regular employment classification after successfully completing his probationary period.
“I just wanted to make sure you guys were aware over the course of the last week, we’ve been working with the 2020 grant committee with the amphitheater out there south of Moore Pool and Recreation Park,” reported Parks Director, Ben Dominique. “Once we laid the building out and the construction platform out, it was determined that there were a few more trees that needed to be moved…what was originally talked to you about.”
“So we are transplanting six trees from that area, and then we also cut three trees down that were past their life cycle…they were hollow. I just wanted to give you a heads up; you’re starting to see a little bit of movement over in that area.”
“Council,” Chief Siders said, “…just to make you aware, due to the COVID-19 situation that we have out there presently, the President of the United States issued a disaster declaration through the Stafford Act. He had issued that on March 31, which was retroactive to January 20. With that was an application that we had to fill out for public assistance grants.”
“Basically…in the event that the government comes up with some monies that we can apply for use within the city, that gets us in line to apply for those federal or state dollars as time goes along. I just wanted to make you aware that we had to get to that application filled out and sent in last week.”
Councilor Richard Hupe said, “I do want to remind people that during the COVID-19 pandemic, that there is no big trash. Please do not put your trash out on the curbs. I’m seeing some trash out on High Street. There’s trash all over some yards over there that looks like it was put out for unlimited. You need to take that back in until we open up again to having big trash, and we don’t know when that is.”
“To repeat what Council Member Hupe said,” added Mayor Schlade, “…we are still suspending the large trash pickup. That is for the safety of our employees, and we revisit that often. There’s a lot of information out there on how long this virus lives on plastic and large surfaces.”
“And as most of us know, we’ve before taken big trash out that morning, and so those germs could potentially still be there. So we’re just trying to make sure that we manage both the safety of our employees, and taking care of our residents. It’s just a balance right now, and we are all doing the very best we can with that under the pandemic situation.”
Timothy can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com
