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INTRODUCING HIMSELF … Introduced by Police Chief Dan McGee, Mr. Gary Mohre, write-in candidate for Williams County Sheriff, speaks with members of the Montpelier Village Council. (PHOTO BY TIMOTHY KAYS)
By Timothy Kays
Across the country, COVID-19 has been successful in slowing down or putting the outright kibosh on things from civic projects to public gatherings. It’s not going to put a stop to the Montpelier Randolph Street Pump Station Rehabilitation Project, though.
At their August 24 meeting, members of the Montpelier Village Council voted unanimously to award two separate bids for the two separate phases of the $402,834.00 project.
Three companies bid on the project. Peterson Construction of Wapakoneta was the sole bidder on Phase A of the project with a bid of $281,525.00. Phase B saw Vernon Nagel, Inc. of Napoleon submitting the winning bid of $121,309.00, $2,470 less than the bid of Bryan Excavating. The engineer’s estimate for Phase A was $282,100.00, and the engineer’s estimate for Phase B was $166,700.00.
Village Manager Jason Rockey said that the village would be receiving $175,000 in OPWC (Ohio Public Works Commission) grant funding through SCIP (State Capital Improvements Program) to be applied toward the project.
The COVID pandemic kept those fund suspended for a while before they were finally cleared. “If you remember,” Rockey said, “…this is a grant we applied for. We didn’t know the status of it once July 1, it’s when we’re supposed to get the official notification.”
“It took them forever; we didn’t know if it was going to happen. The grant that we received to fund this project is in the amount of $175,000. So we found out that we were able to receive the money; they were going to make the funds available, so we went out for bid.”
Explaining the dual phase construction process, Rockey said, “As we’ve discussed it as the Randolph Street Pump Station Rehabilitation Project, we’ve talked about it as one project. However, it needed to be broken down into two separate bids, because you’d have a very technical bid that handles all the pumps and controls, and things like that that are down in the station.”
“And then you have the gravity portion of the project which was designed by Tony Hoeffel, and brings the waste from the south side of the track into the station. So that’s why it was broken up. There were two different design components to this project because Part A was so much different, technically, then Part B. So that’s why you see it in two separate bids here, but it is all part of the same project that we received $175,000 to move forward with.”
Director of Finance Nikki Uribes noted that the village has not received the grant funds yet, but the remaining balance was budgeted for and is available. Rockey added, “Peterson Construction is also the company that did all the pump work and the electronics work out at the Wastewater when we did the improvements out there. Kevin Sommers really enjoyed working with them. They’re outstanding in what they do, so he was happy to see them bid…for this.”
Council heard the second reading of the measure to adopt the Employee Handbook and Policy Manual, then suspended the rules of reading to pass Resolution 1289, allowing for amended appropriations in the amount of $298,588.00.
Council again suspended the rules to adopt Resolution 1290, authorizing Rockey to apply to the OPWC for funding for the planning, design and/or construction of pavement widening and a turn lane along the school frontage on County Road K, aka Brown Road.
“Everything’s been going great at school this past week,” said Police Chief Dan McGee earlier. “I’m very impressed with how things have kind of flowed for this first week. But we are asking a reminder be sent out for parents during drop off and pick up, they follow the signs and remember that it’s a parking lot; it’s not the Autobahn.”
Rockey said, “We want to add a turn lane in there to hopefully help with traffic issues at pickup and drop off times. We heard Chief McGee say it’s a mess out there, and I’m sure many of you have experienced that.”
“I’ve talked to (Williams County Engineer) Todd Roth a number of times over the last year or so about the possibility of doing this if the timing is good. They have issues with part of Brown Road and the ‘wagon tracking’ that you see out there, the indentations, the water that stands on it.”
“This is a good time for us to collaborate on a grant application. OPWC provides up to $325,000 for a project; the village match will be 50% of that. Right now…the village portion of the project after the grant will be hopefully less than $100,000.”
“That’s what we’re trying to keep it to, to be paid out of our normal paving funds that we set aside every year for street improvements and things like that. We wouldn’t be looking to do this project until…during the summer of 2022 when school’s out. The funds wouldn’t be available until next summer anyway.”
Explaining the grant process, Rockey added, “We will be competing with other projects from around the county. Applications are graded and then…it’s a competitive bid process. There are a number of things that make your application score higher or lower, depending on traffic counts.”
“There’s 100 different things that factor into this. We feel that we have a pretty competitive bid. The scope of the project has not been finally determined, but the scope of project that would be the responsibility of the village is determined.”
“Ours would be limited to the section in front of the school, and then there’s also some improvements that are being considered on County Road 13 north and south of Main Street, or and north and south of 107, because those sections of roads as well are village road on one side and county road on the other side.”
“So we try to not have as much of the paving, or maybe some full depth reconstruction…trying to knock out all those shared areas that we have with the county in one fell swoop here. The county’s portion may be expanded. They’re not completely sure what they would be doing, but that would be completely on their cost and would not affect what we would be paying for the grant.”
“So right now, we are considering a 50-50 project because we’re only considering the areas that are half village road and half county road. So if it expands, it really wouldn’t affect what we’re doing here. If the county decides to do more, it’s all in their cost.”
“It may get written into the grant, and it may get written into the application. You may see as opposed to applying for $125,000 grant, which is kind of where the number that we’re looking at right now, if the county decides to do more, they may see that grant grow to $300,000. But that it doesn’t affect what we’re doing with our portions of it. So that’s why we’re considering making an application for this. It’s a 50-50 project.”
“The Village of Montpelier has not applied for OPWC money; it’s LTIP (Local Transportation Improvement Program) money. We figured it looks better if the Village of Montpelier is the headliner on that application and the county, but it would be engineered by Todd Roth, and he’ll be helping us out with that work.”
Councilor Nathan Thompson inquired about when and how the grant is awarded. Rockey replied, “There is a meeting at the county level to decide which projects the county is going to send to the state, and the county has the ability to award discretionary points.”
“The county can award up to 25 discretionary points. We’re at, like 88. We would have to have the county’s discretionary points in order to go to the state. So if they choose our project over something that like the Village of Pioneer or the City of Bryan might put in – I don’t know who may also put in projects.”
“If ours scores higher, they decide to give us the 25 discretionary points, it would be submitted down at the state level, and the state tells you. They look at the whole state and then decide. If we don’t receive the grant, we wouldn’t go through the project.”
Council also heard from Mr. Gary Mohre, interim Williams County Sheriff appointee and current write-in candidate for the office in the November referendum. Introduced by Chief McGee, Mohre presented his qualifications to Council, saying, “I’ve been in law enforcement for many, many years. I started out on the Sheriff’s Department in ‘79. I was there 12 years. I became a sergeant the last three years, and took over the responsibility of the road patrol. I took over responsibility of the Williams County Fair.”
“I left there and went to Blakeslee. We don’t have a lot of crime in Blakeslee, thank God. We have our issues that we deal with…the domestics, the accidents and stuff like that.
I’ve been, and I still am a licensed PI (Private Investigator) with the State of Ohio for the last 25 years. During that time, I worked for, I’d say almost every attorney in Williams County, Defiance County, Fulton County and a lot of them in Paulding County.”
“So we’ve handled felonies on both sides of the bridge…I mean, we’ve had all kinds of stuff. And as a licensed PI, what I’ve done is…accident reconstruction. We photograph crime scenes; I interview a lot of people. I mean it’s never ending, the workload to do that.”
Clarifying the ballot process, Mohre said, “I am a write-in, which means my name will not be on the ballot. There’ll be the primary winner on there underneath the sheriff, and underneath that it’s going to be a line that says, ‘Write-in Candidate.’ That’s where my name has to go if you choose to do so, and the box has to be marked.”
Reflecting on his time as the Interim Sheriff, Mohre said, “I’ve been in law enforcement a long time like I said. When I was appointed by the Commissioners to fill in for the last almost three months before the primary because of Steve Towns’ demise, there was so much we did in that short time, and it seems like we really brought things together. And that really gave me a huge spark to get back in and see what else we could do. I feel that I’m qualified.”
“I feel like I have a lot of support from the law enforcement community, but it’s not just that. You’re here in Montpelier. If you think the Sheriff’s Department doesn’t affect you, it truly does. Our groups work together, and Montpelier…has a great department here.”
“The resources are unlimited what we can do. If we can unite everybody together with that, all the other law enforcement communities, we can make it solid again. My intentions are to bring things back to the way they used to be. I am qualified to do that.”
“I have the support of the communities, and like I said, it’s not just my office, the Sheriff’s Office. It’s not just Williams County, the people in the county. It’s the villages and towns that need to come together with this too, and I feel like we have the ability to do that again.”
“Like I said,” Mohre continued, “…even if you live in a town that already has their police department, which is wonderful, but the Sheriff’s Department’s a good implement for that. And if the two groups don’t work together, it’s a loss of resources. My intention is to bring that back together, and in the short time that I was there, we started to do that.”
“I mean, morale changed. You can’t say, ‘We’ll talk to the deputies.’ Deputies can’t talk about who they want as a candidate. Talk to the deputies’ wives. Talk to the family members. Talk to other police departments.”
“Talk to the communities, the court magistrates, the judges. If you do your research, if you just…get onto my Facebook page, you’ll see that there’s a lot that we can do, a lot that we have done in the past, and we can continue to do it.”
Mohre answered questions about human trafficking and his family background, and in closing reiterated his call for unity, saying, “My first priority is to bring the county together. And with that, we can do so much more. And it’s not just me or my office….it’s all of us, together. And not just law enforcement, but it’s communities. “
“There’s nothing we can’t tackle if we’re on the same page…if we’re not backstabbing and fighting and cursing at each other, and stuff like that. I have a cell phone; it goes off all the time, but I answer it. If I don’t, I call people back.”
“That’s who I am…it doesn’t matter. I’m just that type of person. I’m not a politician. I’m just a straight shooter. You don’t like what I say, then I’m sorry but that’s how feel. If I can’t come up with the answer, I’ll get you the answer.”
In other updates, Rockey spoke on the status of the AMI (Advanced metering Infrastructure)metering project. He reported that the CSO-6 project should be wrapping up by the end of the week, and the Wood Drive Project is wrapping up in the next couple days.
Council then retired into executive session to discuss personnel, with no action forthcoming.
