HEARING THE REQUEST … West Unity Councilor Nate Massie listens to the request for dedicated parking at the March 11 Council meeting. (PHOTO BY TIM KAYS, STAFF)
By: Tim Kays
Representatives of the West Unity Post Office addressed members of the West Unity Village Council March 11 on the subject of reserved parking.
Bonnie Saneda, a Post Office representative, mentioned that the Post Office will be receiving two new delivery vans, and inquired about the possibility of reserving dedicated parking spaces at the parking lot at the corner of North Main and East North Streets.
The request was made for, “…two spaces for the vans, and two spaces for the carrier’s personal vehicles. These are right hand drive vehicles and will be safer for our carriers, and will accommodate the increase of volume of packages, which will result in not having the carriers make two trips to load their vehicle.”
“We are unable to park in front of the post office because of the two-hour limit, so I’m requesting the four spots reserved for postal employees only.”
Police Chief J.R. Jones inquired, “Are these federal government-owned vehicles? If so, they’re commercial vehicles. That’s a non-commercial parking lot. The commercial parking lot is behind the Main Stop.”
When asked if the commercial lot behind the old bank would be acceptable, Saneda replied, “The only thing I could think of off the top of my head would be vandalism of not being kind of close to the post office. Is it lit well? I don’t know how well it’s protected.”
“We have a lot of commercial-like semis where they’ll unhook, and then they’ll take their truck home,” Jones said. “I can’t even tell you the last time we’ve had an issue with a vehicle back there. There’s a floodlight back there.”
When asked what the frequency the area is patrolled, Chief Jones said, “…we primarily run one officer a shift, so depending on what’s going on, I can’t really tell you exactly how many times we could patrol it, but obviously we know a fleet is sitting back there.”
“Just like for a longest time the Department of Aging vehicle sat here; we know it’s there and we tend to keep tabs on that.”
“Even with our business checks from doing it for years and years, we do the back doors and the front doors. So we’ll be walking right by that, just as we would the other location.”
The new vehicles are expected to arrive in the next 4-6 weeks. Saneda said, “The carriers actually have to go to Toledo and get trained to drive these vans. They’re not sure of the exact date, but they said it could be as soon as mid-April to late April, which is just around the corner.”
Council agreed to turn the matter over to the Safety Committee, who will meet in the commercial lot prior to the next Council meeting to discuss the request.
Under suspended rules of reading, Council approved two legislative measures. The first, Resolution 3-2021-5, authorizes the Williams County Commissioners to act as the purchasing agent and governmental aggregator for electric power for the Village of West Unity.
This is a continuation from the February 11 meeting in which Amy Hoffman of Palmer Energy told Council,
Aggregation is when a group of companies or local institutions partner together to negotiate rates and buy energy from developers at smaller volumes, while retaining the economic advantages of a high-volume purchase.
Governmental energy aggregation is an example of such a high-volume purchase. A result of deregulation where consumers are allowed to pick and choose their energy providers, governmental energy aggregation is a proven method for communities to help their constituents hold down energy costs.
“In September,” Hoffman said on February 11, “…Williams County’s government aggregation contract ends, which we oversee, and Center and Springfield Townships are in that.”
“So that will be going out, and we’re going to be doing that RFP (Request for Proposal) in the next month or so. In the meantime, the Village of Edon and the Village of Stryker who were with First Energy Solutions, which is now Energy Harbor, are with us.”
“They’ve ceded authority to join in with the two townships in the county’s aggregation for bulk purchasing power. We’ll all have the same start dates and end dates, and it will better the price…there’s just no two ways about it. So, in the case of Edon, theirs was up in February.”
“What they did, because they wanted to cede authority and join in with Williams is, we did an extension, an addendum to their current contract with Energy Harbor, and just extended it to September.”
“It’s still the same contract…but now they align with Williams County, and they’re going to be part of that RFP. Right now, Williams County, when we send out that RFP, it will be the two townships, and the two villages.”
“I’m just seeing if you want to cede authority, and I’ll get into that and be part of that as well. What we would do is the same thing for you: talk with Energy Harbor, who we work with all the time, have them do an addendum from May until September to extend your current contract. And when we do the RFP, your load will be in there as well.”
Council agreed to join the county contingent on February 11, but on this evening, facing a binding resolution, there was considerable skepticism and questioning before Council agreed to adopt the measure, 4-1
The second measure adopted was Resolution 3-2021-6, approving the updated Solid Waste Management Plan for the joint Solid Water Management District of Defiance, Fulton, Paulding, and Williams Counties.
Addressing large trash pickup day, Village Administrator Joshua Fritsch said, “Since Mr. (Ed) Pike has two trucks running now, we’re going to try to pick up the whole town and not use dumpsters.”
“He thinks he can do it if we do one week one side, and the other week another side…so we would have the two weeks.”
“We’d do the Thursday and Friday before Mother’s Day, then the Thursday and Friday after Mother’s Day. We’ll still probably have to get one dumpster, because we’d throw all the big huge stuff in there that Ed doesn’t want to throw in his truck, some of the stuff that might damage it – wood or mattresses.”
“They don’t compact very well, so we’d put them in the dumpster and get rid of them that way.”
Council heard of a request to abandon a seldom used alley in the area where the old school used to stand.
The alley begins on Lynn Street, west of South High, then after a little over 100 feet and a turn to the west, takes a meandering jog to the northwest where it terminates at South Defiance Street.
Council agreed to take the matter up after the affected landowners sign off on a petition, and the primary petitioner acquires a plat of the property in question.
Tim can be reached at tim@thevillagereporter.com
