Galion’s 598 widening project delayed

By Andrew Walsh
awalsh@wbcowqel.com

The 598 widening project is experiencing some delays in Galion, but these delays could end up benefiting the city as whole. That was the take of Mayor Tom O’Leary as he set out to “inform, without alarming,” near the end of Tuesday’s council meeting.

The start date for the project was April 1, and clearly that date has come and gone without the project beginning. This is due mainly to some utility pole moving hang-ups with the culvert project on Ohio 61. These delays are not the fault of the city, but the 598 project cannot begin until the 61 project is completed.

This situation could benefit the city by potentially delaying the Olentangy bridge closure, currently set for June 1. If this closure were to be delayed, it would give the Hesby Drive detour road project a chance to catch up and be nearer completion by the time the bridge shuts down. The Hesby Drive project is set to begin May 1, so moving back the bridge closure from June 1 to July 1 would obviously help that situation.

The reason these delays could cause some problems stems from the fact that the bridge work and overall paving for the project are being handled by separate entities. ODOT is in charge of the overall paving, and they are the group being delayed by the 61 project. The bridge work has been subcontracted out, and they are not currently under any delays.

The potential “worst case scenario” is that the bridge closure goes ahead on schedule, with the paving work behind schedule. This could mean that the bridgework is done at the end of August, and as per the contract, paving work does not need to be done until the end of October. The more the paving project is delayed, the more likely it will be that ODOT needs to work until the deadline. This would pose some problems for some of the detour schedules for the project.

Council President Carl Watt presented some findings from a presentation he attended on parliamentary procedure. He presented several ideas, for council to consider, that could save a great amount of time and money from the clerk’s office. The minutes of the meetings that Galion currently keeps are verbatim transcriptions. These are then passed out in the council packets to each member of council. There is a tremendous amount of work for the clerk to review the recordings of the meetings and prepare these transcriptions, as well as a great deal of paper to print and distribute these transcriptions.

It is Watt’s view, one backed up by procedures from other communities in Ohio, that the minutes do not need to be verbatim. Seeing as Council meetings are recorded, and those recordings are matters of public record that can be accessed upon request, Watt put forth the idea that minutes include motions, seconds, and votes. Verbatim discussions would be limited to any member of the audience raising a point, council discussion on issues would be synopses.

Another cost savings measure would be for the second and third readings of an ordinance, it is not necessary to distribute the ordinance in subsequent packets. Council members can refer to the initial ordinance they were given.

Watt gave his proposals to council with an eye toward discussing them more thoroughly at the next meeting.

“It appears that these are very common sense changes,” Councilman Mike Richart said.

Ordinance 2014-41 was passed with the rules suspended to avoid accruing any further penalties. This is the ordinance to pay $26,100 to OPERS in missed payments and subsequent penalties due to not making these payments to a city employee in 1982-83. There was no room to negotiate on this, the city was obligated to OPERS, and delaying any further would have only added to the charges.

In public comment, Mike Bear made a presentation to Galion about rewriting the campaign sign ordinance. In his view, the current ordinance is difficult to enforce and an infringement on free speech. The particular trouble spot for him were some of the limitations on how long signs can be displayed in this era when voting early has becoming much more common and the time frame for that widened. He said he made a similar presentation in Bucyrus, which has been well received, and left a copy of his proposed ordinance with the members of council.