Last night’s council meeting
Sorry for the pause in updates. Had to clear my system from social media. But I’m not going to stop providing transparency into your city government. Here are my notes from last night’s city council meeting:
Capital projects
We heard a presentation about the storm water projects completed in 2018, and those getting starting in 2019. The ones this year included the Arndale culvert replacement (necessitated by the caved-in road), the Marhofer Road retention basin, and an increase in rainwater storage capacity near the east end of Mohican. For 2019, we plan to create a bypass sewer to assist Holy Family Church, to replace a storm sewer near Greentree and improve ditches on Baumberger. The 2019 projects will cost about $1 million — all made possible by our storm-water fees that you see on your water bill.
We also heard from our service director about the 2018 road-repair program. We spent a record $2.2 million to fix roads in 2018. The only road we didn’t get to was Norton, from Hudson Drive to Darrow; but this will be the first one tackled in 2019. Next year’s biggest project will be the Graham Road resurfacing, taking place from the Silver Lake railroad tracks to Elm Road. Before that, watch for the traffic signals at the Seasons Road/Route 8 exit to be functional within the next few weeks.
Council shakeup
In the last two weeks, At-Large Councilman Pribonic became Mayor Pribonic. Mayor Costello became Ward 2 Councilman Costello. Ward 2 Councilman Doug Herchick became private citizen Herchick. With this reshuffling, we are down one councilperson — an at-large member. In order to fill that one-year vacancy, Council President Riehl has determined a process whereby people can submit resumes and cover letters to the council office by Dec. 20 at noon. Each sitting councilperson can choose one applicant to include in the interview process. Then the interviews will be held the Friday after Christmas.
Leaf pickup
This has been a challenging fall season for leaves, because they fell so late and snow started so early. This caused piles of leaves to freeze, and required our service department to focus on snow removal rather than leaf pickup. By the time we are completed, every district will have been collected twice. As of Wednesday, we completed Section 1. We are now collecting Section 2. It might be 2019 before we finish the second collection on Section 3.
Downtown Stow
The city’s request for proposals came up empty. But strangely enough, several developers have shown interest after the proposal deadline. So we remain optimistic that we can create a downtown Stow, without using millions of your tax dollars, but rather with millions of private dollars. Mayor Pribonic is every bit as committed to this as I am. Stay tuned…
