Construction projects and PIO discussed by Galion City Council

By Andrew Walsh
awalsh@wbcowqel.com

Memorial Day is the traditional start of summer, and summer in Ohio is the traditional season for municipal construction projects. The big project for Galion, and one that has been much discussed, is the Portland Way South reconstruction project.

Mayor Tom O’Leary thought that one would be up and running by mid-June, but several other projects worthy of note were before council Tuesday night.

At last council meeting, Ordinance no. 2015-38 was introduced and passed on a first reading. This ordinance would allow for the safety service director to bid for the repair of the Cummins Street Lift Station. After passage at the last meeting the mayor asked council to familiarize themselves with this project with an eye toward suspending the rules at the next meeting.

The Cummins Street Station is a pump station in the Galion sewer system that elevates the flow over an incline in the lines. This station, which is about 40 years old, experienced some difficulties earlier in the year that incurred some sizeable costs for the city. The station was repaired on an interim basis, but this project would give the lasting repairs these pumps need to prevent this sort of hiccup becoming a regular occurrence. The ordinance was passed with the rules suspended and Safety Service Director John Swain will now be able to begin entertaining bids.

One project that was returned to Council was the Church Street Overpass project. Only one bid came in, and at just under $300,000, it was much higher than council had anticipated. The project was estimated at a cost of $254,000. Council is only allowed to accept a bid 10 percent higher than what they speculated, so it upped projections and sent the bid back out to market. There is also hope that the higher allowance on this new proposal might attract a few more bidders.

O’Leary wanted to address some of the concerns being expressed by the community about some of the recent construction projects. He mentioned the sidewalk situations in front of Little Caesar’s and First Merit specifically. O’Leary expressed that the city is in communication with ODOT and, “Of course they’ll be taken care of.”

Two other project notes: there will be a meeting about the splash park on Friday. The discussions here will revolve heavily around hardware: how the new implements will be hooked up to the water system, and how they will be filtered and more. There is no news from the Capital Corporation regarding the Central Hotel yet. They have had a meeting but not reported anything to the city.

Council is considering creating the position of Public Information Officer to administer the newly revamped city Web site. Informal discussions were held at the last finance committee meeting, and general council listened to some of the ideas.

The motivation behind this position is primarily twofold: first off, the city just spent about $15,000 on a new Web site and does not want that investment to go to waste by not maximizing its new resource. Second, O’Leary stated his belief that there is opportunity here for this position to contribute news content as well. He was quick to iterate his belief that he did not want this to be a “spin” position, but offering objective information for the citizens of Galion.

As council discussed hypothetical particulars of this position, the subject of civil service versus appointee came up. O’Leary advanced the theory that by making this a civil service position it could solidify this role as a neutral position, not a PR job. The reason for this is that appointees serve at the pleasure of the mayor, meaning they can be dismissed on a whim. A civil service position brings with it certain protections, one of which is that grounds for dismissal must be due to cause (failure to perform) and that upon dismissal would have rights to appeal. This would prevent a mayor from dismissing someone simply because the mayor did not like the content.

As the discussions rolled on, Thomas Fellner thought the best course of action would be to draft a job description, and resume discussions with more concrete details. It is thought the job would be full-time and about $15 per hour. Funding for this position should not be difficult, as council over appropriated in some areas, one of them being contractual services. There should be space in the budget for the remainder of this year, and then Council can carve space out in the budget for future years.

Treasurer Paula Durbin expressed her gratitude to Al Baker and the Street Department for their help in planting the flowers around the square. The Betterment Commission planted almost $650 in flowers, and Baker and his team provides the pots, gravel, and topsoil. They will also take care of watering the plants via an attachment to the street sweeper. Durbin is planning to expand the planting do in years to come.