By: Jesse Davis
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
jesse@thevillagereporter.com
Swanton Fiscal Officer Holden Benfield reported to the village council on Monday that a savings of more than $90,000 was possible on a pair of backup pumps for the village’s Water Resource Recovery Facility.
According to Benfield, WRRF Superintendent Joe Tillison was making a request to use about $68,000 of the remaining $850,000 available for the WRRF project to buy the spare pumps to keep on hand in case the pumps in the plant go down. In the past, such breaks have forced the whole facility to shut down for days at a time.
The normal cost to repair just one of those pumps is roughly $80,000, Benfield said, but another municipality bought a pair of pumps through the same engineer that the village used for its WRRF project only to find they didn’t match the specs of their project.
They do, however, match the specs of Swanton’s facility. The pumps were only used for about a month, but as the other municipality doesn’t need them and they are technically used, they are offering both to Swanton for about $68,000, a theoretical savings of $112,000.
Benfield said the WRRF project came in well under its expected time frame, which saved a significant amount of labor costs, and that the remainder of the money slated for the project is unlikely to be used.
POLICE DEPARTMENT UPDATE
Police Chief John Trejo reported his department responded to 352 incidents in January. According to numbers provided through the use of a new tracking system that now captures all incidents, that number includes 68 traffic warnings, 19 traffic citations, 77 house or business checks, 11 suspicious vehicles, and 11 alarms, among 50 different types of incidents.
“I love the system, it’s a lot more accurate and beneficial to us,” Trejo said. He said he can get even more granular with the data, such as to show their busiest days during the month were Thursdays and Fridays.
CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULE UPDATE
Village Administrator Shannon Shulters provided an updated schedule for current and upcoming road construction projects.
Phase A of the Hallett Avenue project started construction last August and is scheduled for completion in May, with work ramping up in March.
Phase B, which extends the project from Church Street to the turnpike bridge, is scheduled for spring of next year.
Bid documents for the Munson Road project are currently being submitted to the Ohio EPA for approval, with plans to advertise for bids from March 11 to April 3, with bids open at 10 a.m. on April 3.
With swift council approval, the project would begin that month and be completed by October. A change to the lanes and signals at the intersection of Main Street and Airport Highway is scheduled to start in May and be completed by September.
A project on Crestwood Drive is scheduled to start in May and be completed by October.
FREE POTHOLE REPAIRS
Toeppe reported a lucky break for the village after he had received several calls regarding new potholes on Hallett Avenue as well as at the intersection of N. Munson Road and Dodge Street.
“Fortunately, we had a vendor come out – that wanted to demonstrate some of their cold patch, so they were able to come out and demonstrate on some of our potholes for us,” Toeppe said.
Additionally, Fiscal Officer Holden Benfield said that when the vendor was done, they gave the village the rest of the cold patch they had left on their truck, free of charge.
ZONING ORDINANCE CHANGE
The council approved on first reading a zoning ordinance change that will put into effect the same restrictions regarding sheds on business and industrial properties as they already exist on residential properties.
Among the requirements are that they must be at least five feet off the property line and at least 10 feet away from any adjacent structure. Restrictions were also put in place on their use.
“We don’t want somebody putting up a building and then somebody’s living there … makes it a residential home,” Shulters said.
The change was previously discussed by the village’s Planning Commission at several of its meetings after several businesses indicated their desire to add sheds to their properties, she said.
OTHER BUSINESS
Deputy Fire Chief Barrett Dorner reported his department responded to 110 incidents in January – 93 EMS calls and 17 fire calls – just four short of last year’s record.
The council approved on an emergency basis an ordinance clarifying the introductory wording to one of the village’s codified ordinances after its vagueness was pointed out during a vote on a change to the ordinance’s functions during the last council meeting.
The public portion of the meeting ended with the council going into an executive session to discuss public employee matters. No action was taken following the session.
The next regular meeting of the Swanton Village Council will be held at 6 p.m. on Monday, February 24 at 219 Chestnut Street.