Message #2 from Mayor Greg Kimball

We would like to thank the community for supporting the Street Levy. While we know that everyone is concerned that they are not seeing immediate improvements it is important for you to know how these projects are put together.

On Thursday July 11 our Administrator, April Huggins Davis and myself delivered our Ohio Public Works Commission (OPWC) application for street repair funding to the Champaign County Engineers Office. All 21 pages of it.

We have put a lot of time, effort and thought into our application. We want to get the best bang for our buck, while at the same time presenting it in a way to increase our chances of approval.

Our plan is to seek funding for the repaving of 4 streets, Sceva, Pleasant, South Locust, and the west end of Prospect St., from Park to Western. The total project cost is estimated at $299,631.

The application shows a grant request for $86,893, a loan request for $89,889, with a village match of $122,849. The loan would be at 0 % interest for 15 years. This will keep our yearly loan payment under $6000. This is affordable with our current revenue stream.

One of your questions probably will be WHY so much local match funds? $122,000? It is a complicated scoring system. One of the considerations is that the more matching funds, the greater the possibility of approval. We are putting up as much as we believe we can afford in order to increase that possibility. Each year there are 50-60 applications in district 7 with only about 50% getting approved, so increasing our chances for approval is important.

We believe this will put us in position for future projects with OPWC including complete street rehabilitation, storm sewer repair, water line and sanitary sewer replacement.

If approved this repaving will be done next year.

​Also for your information the pavement patching of Sandusky street will commence this week. Spring and early summer rains really put a damper on construction schedules, and they are just now starting to catch up.