Westmoor sewer debt placed in escrow

By Patty Rice Groth

Inquirer Cor­re­spon­dent

In order to pro­tect the approx­i­mately $1 mil­lion dol­lar loan from the U.,S. Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture on the West­moor sewer project, the Craw­ford County Board of Com­mis­sion­ers chose to cer­tify com­ple­tion of the project as of Decem­ber 31, 2012. This action was taken despite admit­ted prob­lems which remain unre­solved between Polk Town­ship, Craw­ford County and the con­trac­tor, Elite Exca­vat­ing Co. of Ohio Inc.

On Feb­ru­ary 28, 2013, the com­mis­sion­ers estab­lished a new fund to be used as an escrow account, under the direc­tion of the county audi­tor. An account which has been inac­tive for a period of more than five years was reas­signed to track expenses which remain due in the project, Account No. GG162.

In the same res­o­lu­tion, com­mis­sion­ers autho­rized the county audi­tor to release $45,518.70 to the con­trac­tor. That amount is the dif­fer­ence between the $107,224.20 received by the county from the USDA grant to com­plete the project and the county engineer’s esti­mate of $61,705.50 to actu­ally com­plete the project.

Until the issue of pond­ing on the roads within the West­moor sewer project are resolved, the $61,705.50 will remain in the escrow account.

In late Feb­ru­ary, Com­mis­sion­ers autho­rized the county engineer’s office to adver­tise for bids for the pur­chase of con­struc­tion mate­ri­als to be used in the county and town­ships dur­ing the 2013 con­struc­tion sea­son. The bid pack­age spec­i­fied amounts of asphalt, con­crete, back­fill, gravel and lime­stone. Bids to sup­ply aggre­gate mate­ri­als were received from Han­son Aggre­gates, Castalia, Kirby Sand & Gravel, Upper San­dusky, National Lime and Stone Com­pany, Bucyrus, and The Olen Cor­po­ra­tion, Upper San­dusky. Bids for asphalt mate­ri­als were received from Bucyrus Road Mate­ri­als, Bucyrus, and Asphalt Mate­ri­als Inc., Ore­gon. For ready-mix con­crete, bids were received from Buck­eye Redy-Mix, Upper San­dusky, Moritz Con­crete, Mans­field, and William Dauch Con­crete Com­pany, Norwalk.

The mate­ri­als to be used in sum­mer 2013 con­struc­tion projects are pur­chased at the dis­cre­tion of the county, town­ship, city or vil­lage man­ag­ing the project.

Turn­ing its atten­tion to the upkeep on the court house annex build­ing on East Mans­field Street in Bucyrus, the board opened bids from The Charles Rit­ter Co., Mans­field, and Designs by Sharo, based in Bucyrus. The Charles Rit­ter Co. won a con­tract to pro­vide win­dow treat­ments for the build­ing at a cost of $2,664, beat­ing Designs by Sharo’s bid by just $286.

In per­son­nel mat­ters, the board appointed Matthew S. Schef­fler of Bucyrus to the posi­tion of assis­tant clerk to the com­mis­sion­ers. A Bucyrus res­i­dent, Schef­fler will be paid $12 per hour on a full-time sched­ule of 40 hours per week. The usual 120-day pro­ba­tion­ary period started March 4.

In early Feb­ru­ary the board of com­mis­sion­ers approved ter­mi­na­tion of a new employee at the Job and Fam­ily Ser­vices office within the stan­dard 120-day pro­ba­tion­ary period.

On the rec­om­men­da­tion of the county data pro­cess­ing board, county com­mis­sion­ers approved the pur­chase of two new lap­top com­put­ers with Microsoft Office Stan­dard 2013 installed. The new lap­tops will be used by the county prosecutor’s office. Includ­ing ship­ping, the total cost of the com­put­ers is $2,935.22.

Two desk­top com­put­ers for use by the county dog warden’s office were also approved, at a total cost of $1,979.38. These com­put­ers also will be equipped with Micor­soft Office Stan­dard 2013.

The data pro­cess­ing board also rec­om­mended the pur­chase of one desk­top com­puter with Microsoft Office Stan­dard 2013 for use by the county clerk of courts — title depart­ment. The cost of that unit is $969.19. All of the com­put­ers approved were pur­chased from Dell Direct.

The county solid waste man­age­ment dis­trict coordinator’s request for increased capac­ity of the recy­cling bin at the land­fill was approved at a total cost of $17,237. That cost includes freight from Mid­west Indus­tries Inc. in Ida Grove, Iowa.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Mar 22 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.