Wellsville Village Council Reflections

Being a little under the weather we didn't make it to last night's Village Council meeting. We had every intention to get there but enough about us. Hated to miss the first meeting of the New Year. However, we think we got a very good account of the meeting with Jo Bob's report in this morning's papers.

It seems the Village made it through the year in the black with closing out 2010 with $2,010 in the General Fund and some $458,000 total of in all funds. In comparison to what Salineville reported with $7.96 in their General Fund Wellslville's is a bit of good news. It's not great but with the cooperation of everyone working to keep the Village solvent we believe they will get over the hump. The 1st quarter is going to be month to month but Village officials are showing their determination with what they have done, especially in the last two months.

We have to question the action making the alley between 8th & 9th Streets back to two way traffic with one Councilman telling the WPD it is okay. That is the alley closest to Main Street next to the old MacDonald School. Granted it is a good idea to facilitate the proposed Ohio River Bread Company but wasn't that alley made one way by Village ordinance? Wouldn't it take another ordinance to rescind the old one? In our opinion it should, at the very least, be done by a Council motion if there isn't an ordinance on the books.

Another part of the newspaper's account that caught our attention was Jo Bob's reporting that Cataldo mentioned before the meeting there is '“devastating news' concerning sewage projects”'. There's going to be a Sewage Committee meeting tomorrow to discuss it. Let's take a guess.. They are going to announce that the Sewage Treatment Plant's digester conversion project is months behind since the contractor hasn't got the equipment to install in the first digester that was suppose to be operating this past October. Consequently raw sewage has been building up, since there is no way to treat it. Now the Village is facing a costly dilemma on what to do.

From what we learned there was a mix up in who was responsible to order the new parts and machinery for the digesters. We don't know who they are going to blame. We already learned that a former engineer pulled a fast one ear marking STAG funds to pay for part of the project before those funds were released by the EPA. He was blamed for having to return the Highland Avenue project on the back burner once again. No one in the Village had any idea what the engineer did. Are they going to use him as the fall guy once again?

Following two BWD multimillion dollar projects in the last two years, from bidding, to awarding a contract for the job, to installation, it was always the contractor's responsibility to order the parts once the contract is awarded. The specifications in the contract called for what needed to be ordered. If there were problems it was reported in bi-weekly Progress Meetings if not before.

Now with nothing to work with the operator of the Sewage Treatment Plant is running out of storage space for the raw sewage. With the seasonal cooler weather the drying beds functionality is slow. The heat of summer is needed for them to work faster. Unfortunately you can't speed up Mother Nature. When we last inquired a week ago we were told there is one empty drying bed left for storage. The other beds and the second tank are full of sludge. The first tank was stripped and prepared to install the new equipment. After that last bed is filled they have nowhere else to store sludge unless they use the first tank. Thus the dilemma. We're guessing the Village is facing a very costly solution with the delay in getting the digesters operating. We've already seen one proposed project put back on the shelf. Is this going to force Village officials to put another sewage project on the back burner?

We shall see...

ole nib