Bucyrus City Council meets

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

BUCYRUS—Bucyrus City Coun­cil had a meet­ing Sept. 4, where fund­ing for sev­eral projects was appro­pri­ated, includ­ing a sewer separation.

Mon­ica Sack, chair of the Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Com­mit­tee, gave a report of the committee’s Aug. 27 meet­ing. First, it amended the enter­prise zone area within the City of Bucyrus. In 2008, 4.4 acres in Whet­stone Town­ship was annexed to the city and now that land is to be added to the enter­prise zone, pend­ing leg­is­la­tion approved by the Council.

The com­mit­tee also dis­cussed a let­ter the city received recently regard­ing Sen­ate Bill 321, which changed the gov­er­nance of Ohio libraries. Under the new law, city coun­cils are now respon­si­ble for appoint­ing mem­bers to librarys’ board of trustees and the boards must con­sist of seven mem­bers (for­merly it was six).

Matthew Ross, direc­tor of the Bucyrus Pub­lic Library, sub­mit­ted the let­ter, which requested that Coun­cil appoint a sev­enth board mem­ber. He rec­om­mended Sandy Shields because of her expe­ri­ence with bring­ing com­puter tech­nol­ogy to Bucyrus City Schools. The com­mit­tee approved Shields as a board member.

Dan Wire­baugh, chair of the Health and Safety Com­mit­tee, reported on the committee’s Aug. 23 meet­ing. A request from New Wash­ing­ton to renew the mutual aid agree­ment with Bucyrus was dis­cussed. The com­mit­tee decided to accept the agree­ment and leg­is­la­tion for it is forthcoming.

The com­mit­tee also dis­cussed an issue that a con­cerned cit­i­zen informed coun­cil of at a pre­vi­ous meet­ing: Miss­ing or non-visible house num­bers on homes in the city. Wire­baugh said the issue will con­tinue to be looked into.

Steve Pifer, chair of the Finance Com­mit­tee, gave his report of the committee’s Aug. 23 meet­ing. The com­mit­tee appro­pri­ated $10,382 to the Police Depart­ment to go toward its K-9 Unit. The Bucyrus Area Com­mu­nity Foun­da­tion and Bucyrus Elks Club pro­vided the funds.

For the Charles Street Sewer Sep­a­ra­tion Project, it estab­lished a fund for the project and appro­pri­ated money for it that was then put into leg­is­la­tion that came before Coun­cil later that evening. $185,000 from the Ohio Pub­lic Works Grant went to that fund. It also appro­pri­ated: $50,000 for water lines, $150,000 for sew­ers, $109,000 to storm water util­ity and $300,000 from the street con­struc­tion fund.

Also, for the 2012 Mill and Pave Project Finance appro­pri­ated $200,000 from the street con­struc­tion fund. Waste Water Plant Super­vi­sor Terry Spiegel brought a pro­posed res­o­lu­tion to be sent to the Amer­i­can Water Works Asso­ci­a­tion, which also came before Council.

Finance Com­mit­tee also held an emer­gency meet­ing on Sept. 4, imme­di­ately before that evening’s Coun­cil meet­ing. It dis­cussed not lim­it­ing the amount of homes that can be demol­ished using CDBG funds. Pifer said there is $35,200 in the bud­get for it and that money can only be used for this project.

The mayor had no report that evening. Service-Safety Direc­tor Jeff Wag­ner said the Beal Avenue Project was com­plete and the road has been reopened. Bids were opened for the Charles St. Project and three were received; spec­i­fi­ca­tions will need to be reviewed with OPWC before a con­tract can be awarded.

Wag­ner also said the sys­tem for online bill pay of city util­i­ties is being updated and the sys­tem is cur­rently down. He hopes the sys­tem will be back online by the end of the week.

Audi­tor Joyce Schifer said the rev­enue state­ment for Aug. 31 is avail­able for review. She also referred updat­ing the Vic­tim Advo­cate Pro­gram to the Finance Committee.

In leg­is­la­tion, Coun­cil passed three ordi­nances as emer­gen­cies. Ord. 27–2012 cre­ated a fund for the Charles St. Project and Ord. 28–2012 appro­pri­ated money to the fund in the amounts requested by the Finance Committee.

Ord. 29–2012 trans­ferred $3,100 to Mate­ri­als and Sup­plies for dues owed to the Craw­ford County Part­ner­ship for Edu­ca­tion & Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment, as well as increased the bal­ance for Con­trac­tual Ser­vices by $300.

Two res­o­lu­tions were also passed: Res. 225‑2012, to be sent to the AWWA to show the city’s sup­port in national fund­ing for improv­ing water infra­struc­ture, and Res. 226‑2012, autho­riz­ing the service-safety direc­tor to demol­ish prop­er­ties in Bucyrus with no limit as to how many vacant or blighted homes could be removed.

Bucyrus City Council’s next meet­ing is Sept. 18 at 7:30 p.m., in the Coun­cil Cham­bers of City Hall.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Sep 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.