September Administrator’s Report

ADMINISTRATOR’S REPORT

September 18, 2017

 

 

UTILITY BILLING CLERK POSITION FILLED:

 

April Litzenberg has taken Utility Clerk position.  She started part time on Monday, September 11, 2017.  She will be working Monday, Wednesday and Thursdays from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.  She was previously employed by Putnam Law Offices and has  accounting and computer background.   Charie Peters will continue on an as needed basis until April is comfortable on her own.  Aimee has been working with her as she has time. We have October 1st quarterly water bills coming up and this will be a good training for April.

 

REQUEST BY CONSERVATION CLUB:

 

The Antwerp Conservation Club called to propose bringing in a self-contained bebe gun range into the park for special events as an attraction.  The range is a blow up and an adult would man the range when it was in use.  The Club stated they would carry liability on the activity and name the Village as an additional insured.  I spoke to the Village’s insurance company and they requested the club named the village as additionally insured, have an agreement/contract between the village and the club and have waivers signed by anyone using it.

 

The Club has just received this unit and is in the process of setting it up on their property.  Once it is ready to be viewed they will ask any council member who would like to see it to come out.  Again, this would only be in the park for special events, i.e., Day in the Park and I informed the Club if the village agrees to this they would still need to contact the Chamber of Commerce to see if this is an activity they would like to add to Day in the Park.  As more information becomes available and the range is ready to be viewed, council will be updated.

 

COMPOST PILE CHIPPED & REOPENED TO THE PUBLIC:

 

The compost site has been closed for the past few weeks due to the fact that we have reached the maximum brush allowed by EPA.  The chipping company, Go Green, had equipment failure and was required to purchase a new machine.  The brush was chipped Wednesday of this week and the site has been re-opened.  The site is open daily now as we have live cameras operational on-site.

 

The Village has quite a bit of wood mulch and if any village resident wants mulch they can contact the undersigned at 419-258-2371 to set a time when the village could assist in loading mulch on a trailer.  According to EPA the village is to reduce the amount of mulch we have on-site by ¼ each year.

 

The Village also has acquired fairly good topsoil from the hospital project.  The plan is to mix this soil with compost currently on-site and make this available also to the village residents.  Questions on when this will be available should be directed to the undersigned.

 

DECORATIVE CORNICE PULLING AWAY FROM TOWN HALL:

 

On the south side of the town hall building, the decorative cornice structure has pulled away from the building.  Tri-County Roofing went up onto the roof to see if they could reach it from the top and it’s too far down for them to address it.  The only option would be to bring in a lift to take the cornice down.  Tri-County said it could come down in the wind or heavy snow and is a danger.  The undersigned and the Mayor spoke with Lyle Leinard about access and he stated we could not bring a lift onto his property so we should just get a crane to reach it from our property.  So we are at a loss on what we are going to do to address this.

 

TRICK OR TREAT TIMES SET:

 

Treat or Treat in the Village is set for Saturday, October 28th from 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

 

SANITARY SEWER AND LIFT STATION PROJECT:

 

As reported at the August council meeting the bid for the improvements to the lift stations and sanitary sewer plant was $93,000 over the engineer’s estimate.  The undersigned along with Lee Rausch of Poggemeyer Design Group met with Buckeye Pipes, supplier of lift station pumps to see if there was anything that could be adjusted in the bid documents to lower the cost at the new round of bidding.  Several suggestions were offered.  Additionally, one of the main draw backs that was pointed out by contractors who did not bid the project, was #1 they all had projects and couldn’t take on our project with the original project timeline and #2, the Stone Street Lift Station is 40 foot deep and they have concerns in working in this deep excavation.  The undersigned was able to find in the original 1979 sanitary sewer plant documents soil borings for all 40 feet of the original Stone Street lift station, hopefully this will provide information to potential contractors on what they would be looking at for new excavation.

 

In talking with OPWC, one of the funding agencies for this project, they indicated they did not see a problem with extending the project completion date and felt we should re-bid with construction in 2018 to get better bids.   We should know in the coming weeks when a new bid date will be issued.  I will keep council up-to-date.

 

WATER TREATMENT PLANT IMPROVEMENT:

 

The undersigned along with water operator Curtis Nestleroad met with Poggemeyer’s Tom Borsh to review the improvements to the water treatment plant that received OPWC funding.  One of the biggest issues is the type of filter media that should be used in the filters.  The village has had iron and manganese showing occasionally in test results during the past year.  The village recently tested the raw well water for all three wells and it was revealed that Well #5 has high iron and manganese test results.  It also was determined that this well has galvanized piping which can result in higher iron and manganese.  An estimate to replace the 340 feet of well piping was received for $12,700.  This replacement will be scheduled for 2018 out of the 2018 water budget. This is something that was discovered since the filing of funding for the initial water plant improvements.  This finding along with the age of the filter media should result in lower iron and manganese.  To that end, it looks like we should be able to recommend the normal media instead of a green sand mixture which requires additional treatment at the filter and higher cost.

 

All of the proposed improvements will also require EPA approval, so we are taking this one step at a time.  It is still hoped we can replace the media this fall.  I will keep council up-to-date on when the project will go to bid.

 

VACATION:

 

I will be on vacation starting September 23rd through October 1, 2017.