By: Tim Kays
Bryan citizens who are looking to recycle batteries are being forced to look elsewhere, and it’s all because of the COVID pandemic.
“I just want to give a little information on battery recycling,” said Bryan Street Commissioner Tyson Engstrom at the February 1 meeting of Bryan City Council.
“For the last few years, the county recycling department, through the county health department, has had a box for battery recycling out at our recycling facility. Since COVID, they have came and picked that up and it’s not there anymore.”
“They set them out around the county and picked them up randomly, and then they would have to drive all the batteries themselves to Wixom, Michigan, which is…northwest of Detroit.”
“With COVID, they’re overwhelmed with that and cannot get the batteries to Wixom. They picked those up, so we right now don’t have a container for used, worn out batteries at the recycling center. With COVID hopefully wrapping up here in the near future, they’re going to re-evaluate that.”
“In the meantime, regular alkaline batteries can be thrown away in the trash, or if you want to recycle those or the rechargeable batteries, the Lowes in Defiance has a box for batteries, or at Home Depot in (Auburn, Indiana).”
“I’ve had quite a few phone calls in the last couple of weeks from people wanting to know what to do with the batteries since that container is gone now. we finally got any answer, and that’s I’m just passing that information along.”
In legislative actions undertaken at the meeting, Council suspended the rules of reading and adopted Ordinance 5-2021, providing for appropriations in the amount of $296,836.33. Included in the measure were appropriation requests for the 2021 Probation Grant for $10,798.11, and $38.22 for the 2021 Justice Reinvestment Incentive Grant.
An appropriation request of $143,000 to allow for a transfer from the Electric Fund to the Electric Capital Reserve Fund was also included, as was an appropriation in the Electric Capital Reserve Fund for the GT Controls Upgrade Project in the amount of $143,000.
Under suspended rules of reading, Council passed Ordinance 6-2021. This measure provides for the transfer of funds in the amount of $1,043,000 from the Electric Fund to the Electric Capital Reserve Fund, as well as a transfer of $84,681.80 from the Half Percent Income Tax Fund to the Wastewater Treatment Fund for the 2021 payment on the sanitary sewer overflow elimination debt. With this payment, the project debt will be reduced to $123,000, and the project will be paid off in July 2022.
Council approved the employment of Jonathan Wood as a full time Patrol Officer with the Bryan Police Department upon his successful completion of any and all pre-employment medical examinations.
He will have a one year probationary period. “Jonathan’s an officer in Stryker right now,” said chief of Police Chris Chapa. “We’re hoping to get him in here as soon as we can to start getting our numbers back up.”
Council heard the annual reports from the Engineering, Parks and Recreation and Fire Departments.
“Shelter and pavilion rentals were down significantly in 2020. “Obviously,” said Parks Director Ben Dominique, “…with COVID, we didn’t do the rentals. A lot of the events, numbers-wise, were down, and actually what we offered was down, again due to the COVID.”
“We estimate that the grand total of about 85,000 people used our park facilities. That number was helped a little bit by baseball and softball being able to play towards the end of the summer, and then also pretty much the full soccer season.”
“That kind of helped our numbers a little bit as we as we moved towards the end of the year, but obviously nowhere near the numbers that we typically have using the parks.”
Dominique also pointed out several substantial donations during 2020, including donations from the Bryan Area Foundation for the Amphitheater project, and over $10,000 from the Kiwanis Club for harmony playground equipment.
Chief Bruce Siders reported that the Bryan Fire Department responded to 413 calls for service during 2020, over 28% of which were rescue and emergency service calls. False alarms and ‘good intention’ calls accounted for 17.19% and 20.1% of the reported incidents, while 58 calls, or 14.04%, were for actual fires.
When asked what a ‘good intent call was, Chief Siders replied, “I smell something in my house. I’m not sure what it is, if it’s smoke, or I think I smell smoke. Those are good intent calls.”
While COVID casualties littered the landscape of hopeful projects around the country, the Engineering report detailed that the pandemic couldn’t derail the progress of the City of Bryan.
While huge projects such as the Street Improvements for Bryan North Industrial Park Connecting Bement Street and Paige Street project, the South Williams Street Water Main Replacement project, the Street Improvement of Mayberry Drive from YMCA Entrance to Center Street project, the Don North Municipal Building Entrance Improvements project took the headlines in 2020, the annual street improvement programs were equally ambitious.
On May 18, Council approved Gerken Paving, Inc. as the General Contractor for the 2020 Asphalt Program at a cost of $592,954.70. The project mainly covered the southwest quadrant of the city.
Tim can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com
