February 3 Council Meeting

It lasted all of 10 minutes from the Call -To- Order rap of the gavel to the vote for adjournment. All six council people were present along with F.O. Dale and WFD Chief Bill Smith, the only administrator to show up. Saracco is still on vacation in sunny & chilly Florida. The mayor is still recuperating from his surgery. John McMahon reported he's doing a little better and slowly recovering.

There were no comments for Public Speaking. Besides report J.A.B. Gilbert and myself there were only two other people in attendance. One of them was former Councilwoman Diane Dinch.

Under Administrator Reports the Fire Chief reported that the department handled a total of 21 calls for the month of January. Three of them were for "full alarms", three for investigations, six service calls and nine medical assists. Smitty also submitted another bid to get the siren at the station back working. It has been broken for several months now and is causing problems with it not working. Two of the problems are not getting the attention of some fire fighters to respond and trouble getting out of the station once they are ready to roll. Without the siren people driving by are unaware the department is responding to a call. That in itself is a big safety problem for all concerned. Seconds count big time in any emergency situation. Being delayed getting to the scene could have very serious potential problems because of it. That siren needs to be fixed or replaced asap. It will be on the agenda at a Finance Committee meeting tomorrow.

Under Committee Reports Joe Soldano complimented the street workers on the outstanding job they have been doing dealing with all the snow and ice. They have done a heckuva job with only three people, only having two trucks and restricted salt usage. Like Joe said they are to be commended. Soldano also announced there will be a Streets, Lights & Parking Committee meeting next Wednesday. The time will be announced.

Personnel Committee and Water, Sewer & Refuse chairman Randy Allmon had nothing to report in spite of having meetings for both committees last week. That may be because both were covered and reported on in our local papers. Also, I did a piece on the Personnel meeting last week. The Sewage & Water committee met with Bill Boyle, the engineer from G,G & J. It mainly covered the progress made in verifying expenditures of the STAG Fund grant. They are making headway but they still have to do some digging for old invoices or cancelled checks to make the EPA happy. Once that occurs the Ohio Public Works will release funds to pay for the new digesters at the Sewage Plant and the EPA will release funds for the Highland/Ridge Avenue project & Pump Station 1 at 3rd Street. Some of those records go back to 1993.

Also discussed at that meeting was the discrepancy between what the Sewage plant pumps and what Buckeye Water District say they supply the village. That difference is around 12 million gallons a month of more water than what is treated. Boyle said that amount of water would be a gusher of epic proportions and be quite evident. The difference would be about what is estimated for the number of houses in Russell Heights and they were to check with BWD to see if their figure included water for up there. Both amounts is suppose to be only for what is used within the village limits. If it is not a paper error than the village is losing around $120,000/month on waste water that should be treated. Since no gushers have been sighted I'm betting on clerical error but we will have to wait to see.

Under Property, Equipment & Cemetery Chairman John McMahon motioned to take the Cataldo Construction bill off the table and once that was approved motioned to pay the bill. That's the bill that's been tabled since last September for the work done on the shelters at Hammonds Park or Sheltergate II, as I like to call it. The motion to pay was also approved and that is now behind us. The only negative votes were cast by Don Brown & Rosie Goss on both taking it off the table and to pay it. Nobody made any comments at the council meeting. Later on, as reported in the papers, both indicated in their remarks to the reporter that it was basically the quality of work the company did that made them vote no. Tony Cataldo abstained on both votes. Even though I advocated that the bill should be paid since a commitment was made by a village official I have to agree with both Brown & Goss. The quality of work was less than stellar. It was an expensive lesson. I hope it was a lesson well learned.

There were no other committee reports or remarks, no pending legislation and no new business. The meeting was adjourned at 6:10 according to Alltel time. No exclamations, out bursts or sharp remarks. Is it a harbinger of things to come or the calm before the storm?

Next meeting is scheduled for February 17.

ole nib