Galion council approves contract to move Portland Way poles

By Andrew Walsh
awalsh@wbcowqel.com

More pieces of the 598 widening project are falling into place, and Galion is set to see another cost savings. City Council approved a contract with Didado for the movement of the utility poles to make way for the widening. It was passed as an emergency at the request of Mayor Tom O’Leary.

O’Leary asked for the emergency legislation due to the relative urgency of getting this work done. The reason this portion of the project was not bid is threefold.

The first is the aforementioned timeliness. By proceeding with the project immediately, the City can have the utility poles moved by the second week of March; as opposed to merely having the bidding completed by that timeframe.

The second is that when initial quotes for his work, Didado had submitted the lowest number.

The third factor is that by being able to assure ODOT that these poles will be out of the way before the project proper begins, ODOT will reimburse 80% of this work. The total cost of moving the poles will be around $120,000, so this will be a significant savings to the city.

In another piece of emergency legislation, the city agreed to an alliance agreement with ConnectAmerica.com. They will provide, in conjunction with the City, an emergency alert system for elderly and infirm in Galion. The city is offering use of its dispatch and emergency responder systems, and Connect America is providing hardware for the alert system and services.

Questions were raised by new council member Susan Beach concerning what level of liability the City would have on various amounts of information being held by Connect America, pertaining both to medical and personal payment information. City Law Director Thomas Palmer assured Beach, and the rest of council, that the contract had protections for the city written into it.

A proposal to enter into an agreement with Hyperion Energy Solutions for an LED light study was tabled. Councilman Eric Webber raised the initial concerns, and he was quickly backed by other members of council. While this contract would be for a study only, and require no further action by the city after the study was completed, there were concerns about whether this was a service that could be rendered by Efficiency Smart.

When it was first discussed to have Hyperion conduct this study, there were questions as to whether this work could be done by Efficiency Smart, and it was not certain if their contract with the city would be renewed. It is has since been verified that this is work that Efficiency Smart can do, and their contract will be discussed at the next regular council meeting. In light of these revelations the $3,500 for this study was deemed an unnecessary expense.

Galion School Board President Dennis Long received recognition from O’Leary due to last week’s agreement between the City and School that allows the go ahead of the Hesby Drive project. This is another important piece in the 598 project and O’Leary expressed his gratitude in the multi-lateral cooperation.

“I want to thank the school board and council for realizing the importance of that project,” O’Leary said.

Plans are expected to be finalized tomorrow, with the final easement agreements ready for Thursday. This means that they could be bidding on this work as early as next week.

City Council is considering purchasing iPads for use during Council meetings. This idea was brought before the finance committee by Council President Carl Watts after the agenda packets for the January meeting totaled 125 pages. Clerk Julie Bell estimated the cost of assembling these packets at $1,800 per year, when paper and her time are considered. With the expected cost of about $4,000 for 10 iPads (one for each of the seven council members, and Bell, Watts, and Palmer) these machines would pay for themselves rather rapidly. No official decision has yet been made to go ahead, but council did move some funds around to make this purchase possible if such a decision is made.

Chamber of Commerce Director Joe Kleinknecht announced a ribbon cutting for Feb. 26. Déjà vu, a buy-sell-trade shop will open its doors Wednesday. Kleinknecht also announced the Chamber Economic Development Breakfast for 7:30 a.m., March 11.