(PHOTO BY JESSE DAVIS / THE VILLAGE REPORTER)
NEW TECH … Delta Village Council members Tony Dawson (left) and Rachel Adams (right) participate in the regular council meeting Monday evening, using their newly purchased tablet computers. The tablets, recommended by Village Administrator Chris Frazer and approved by council, allow the council members to view their agendas and documents digitally, which will eventually provide a cost savings over the existing paper system.
By: Jesse Davis
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jesse@thevillagereporter.com
The school zone on Taylor Street is set to expand after the Delta Village Council signed off on the plan from Police Chief Samuel Chappell at its meeting Monday evening.
There are currently two school zones on Taylor Street – one for the elementary and middle schools and one for the high school, with a roughly 450-foot gap in between.
“Having that dead zone on Taylor where it’s not a school zone between the two makes it hard to enforce, because there’s a spot there where it is 25 [miles per hour] and then it goes 20, 25, 20, 25,” Chappell said.
The project would also include new signage, including pedestrian-activated flashing signs along with school zone signs with flashing lights that run during the hours in which the zone limit is active.
“After speaking with [the Ohio Department of Transportation] about the project, they believe we would be a good candidate to get, basically, a grant so that they would provide all the materials and we would just have to provide the labor,” Chappell said.
He said if the village had to buy them, the pedestrian-activated signs cost almost $10,000 each.
The council voted unanimously to support the plan. Chappell’s next step is to file a letter with ODOT informing them of the change as required by law and to submit a proposal for the grant funding.
POLICE DEPARTMENT
Chappell also looked for council input on adding a crosswalk on Main Street/Airport Highway as well as the hiring of a third part-time officer whose sole job would be for traffic enforcement with a main focus on commercial traffic.
He said there are two options for the crosswalk – a pedestrian activated sign like the kind to be used on Taylor Street or a “pedestrian hybrid beacon” like the one on Main Street between the Library and the village offices.
The second type would cost between $100,000 and $200,000, although under another available ODOT grant, the village would only have to pay 10 percent of that cost.
During the discussion, Chappell confirmed that at the existing pedestrian light on Main Street, traffic is legally allowed to pass through while the light is still flashing after first coming to a complete stop if there is no one in the crosswalk.
A concrete bump-out on either side of the crosswalk was also considered as an optional add-on to the project.
The council chose not to push Chappell to look at the crosswalk this year, but Councilman Chad Johnson said he supported the pedestrian hybrid beacon as an option, to be pursued next year.
The additional officer is intended to address residents’ concerns regarding the behaviors of truck traffic through the village, particularly with regard to overloaded trailers and loose loads.
The officer would work with the Ohio State Police’s commercial enforcement team to ensure a weight scale was available during the officer’s shifts, of which there would only be one to four each month.
Chappell said he believed there was already enough funding in the department’s budget to cover the cost of the officer if they found a few small cuts to make, but agreed to bring the item back next meeting after sitting down with Village Administrator Chris Frazer to ensure the money was there.
PARK LEVY CONSIDERATIONS
The council approved on second reading a resolution setting forth a renewal of the existing park levy in order to place it on the November ballot, while also approving on an emergency basis the step needed to get final information from the state auditor to create an option to instead place on the ballot a replacement levy.
The renewal would base revenues on property values at the time the levy was originally passed, while a replacement levy would base them on current property values, generating more money.
Both options are temporarily moving forward as, while the council has shared its support for a replacement over renewal, Legislation has already been passed by the Ohio House of Representatives that could eliminate it as an option.
House Bill 28, which if passed and signed would go into effect October 21 – prior to the election – includes language barring municipalities from enacting replacement levies.
The council also voted to repeal a vote from its last meeting which was intended to move $13,000 out of a fund budgeted for fire hall repairs and put it in the park fund to defray the cost of salary and benefits for certain village administration employees.
As Frazer explained, a miscommunication led the council to believe those were funds sitting there for use when it was actually authorized expenditures with funds to be appropriated from fire levy proceeds when needed, so there was not actually anything there to transfer.
The council declined a recommendation from Frazer to repeal their vote from its last meeting to put proceeds from an electric utility line easement in the park fund.
PUBLIC UTLITIES DEPARTMENT CREATION TABLED
The council voted 3-2 to table indefinitely the final reading of an ordinance merging the water and wastewater departments into a single Public Utilities Department while Frazer works with Water Superintendent Jammie Flores to create new job descriptions for the employees who will now be under the new department.
Council members Johnson and Tony Dawson cast the two dissenting votes. During his comments, Dawson indicated opposition to giving back pay to the employees on the proposed 7 percent raises intended to be included under their newly defined duties due to them having been performing the combined duties since February.
Mayor Allen Naiber said he believed it was wrong to not pay the employees the increase for the back time during which they have already been performing the additional work.
OTHER BUSINESS
The council continued its discussion from the last meeting regarding potential creation of a cemetery district. Consideration of the option is temporarily moving forward with Law Director Kevin Heban to reach out to other municipalities and townships to see if any of them are interested in creating such a district, as one cannot by law be created by a single entity. If interested parties are found, a voting item will be brought back to the council.
At the recommendation of Frazer, the council voted to offer similar payments to other youth sports leagues as was approved for the Delta Youth Sports Association for its maintenance of village-owned sports fields for the current year.
The council approved on second reading a resolution declaring the necessity of a 0.25-mill levy to fund the village’s bulk garbage pickup program.
The levy, planned for inclusion on the ballot in the November election, would see residents paying $9 per $100,000 of assessed property value.
The council voted to authorize the village’s park board to undertake a project completing extension of the sidewalk along the parking lot of the police department to the sidewalk, using the best quote they received for the project, totaling $8,600. Of that cost $2,500 will be covered by a recent donation.
Frazer reported the Zoning Board of Appeals approved the variance request by Pettisville Grain to install a new grain bin at the business’ property on Providence Street.
The next regular meeting of the Delta Village Council will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, June 16, 2025, at 401 Main Street in Delta.