April, 2005
INCOME SURVEY:
The Village is currently working with the Ohio EPA on required plans to complete major repairs and/or replacement of the combined sewer system here in Fort Recovery. These projects are estimated to cost the Village between $3.2 and $4.0 million. Based on the last census of 2000, the median household income is listed at a figure too high to qualify for many various state and federal grant programs. We question the validity of the income number being used and are planning to conduct a door-to-door survey of our residents to calculate a more accurate figure. With this in mind, the Village has contracted with the Business Enterprise Center and Wright State University to conduct a village-wide income survey. They will be completing this survey on Saturdays, April 9th and April 23rd. We are requesting your cooperation with the surveyors as it will take only a few minutes to complete. All information is kept confidential in sealed envelopes and is to be tabulated by the Mercer County Community Development Department, with the Village being provided only the final results which will contain no specific names, addresses or income figures. It is our hope that this survey will result in a more accurate household income number that will allow us to qualify for future funding opportunities. Should you have any questions, please feel free to call Randy Diller at 419-375-1056. Thank you for your cooperation.
SPRING CLEAN-UP DAY:
The annual Spring Clean-up Day is scheduled for Tuesday, May 3rd and will once again begin at 6:30 a.m. The following rules apply as they have in the past:
- Only Village residential customers are eligible. Please do not allow others from out of town to abuse this service.
- All smaller debris must be boxed or bundled.
- Nothing in lengths longer than six feet will be picked up.
- Absolutely NO – tires, concrete/stone/brick items, yard waste-tree limbs, railroad ties, wet paint cans, pesticides, antifreeze, hazardous waste, gas cans or motor oil.
- Appliances and other metal items will be picked up (refrigerators must have Freon removed and be properly tagged).
Please be sure to have everything out to the curb area by 6:30 a.m. as the entire village will be covered in one day and there will be no call backs. Also, please follow the above rules in order for the Village to maintain this as a service to our residents without any additional charge.
ICE STORM & BRUSH PICKUP:
As you know the winter ice storm has provided the Village employees with a great deal of additional brush pickup and tree trimming work. They have done a superb job in keeping up with the continual brush piles, while at the same time cleaning up the parks and cemeteries. By the time this newsletter is received, we also will have completed some much needed tree trimming in the street and alley right-of-ways. It is our intent to remove all hanging branches, clear the various power lines, while not just chopping the tree off on one side. We will do the best we can to keep things looking nice. We intend to get back to our regularly scheduled pick-up days on the first and third Mondays of the month starting in April, but there may be additional days during the weeks where we are able to get some brush chipping completed. As in the past, it is not necessary to call the Village office to let us know you have brush to be
picked up…we will get to it as our schedule and the weather allows.
Please remember the following basic rules regarding brush pick-up:
- It is not the Village workers responsibility to rake your piles up. All the smaller debris should be placed in yard waste bags. With all the additional brush, our pick-up time will be more limited.
- Do not use this service to put out your grass clippings, leaves, shrubs, plants, flowers, fruits, acorns, walnuts, etc. These items will not be picked up.
Thank you for your cooperation!
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:
The Village continues the work to replace the utilities on Gwendolyn Street and W. Center Street and will be looking to complete the underground work this spring and finalize the plans to complete the total street reconstruction later this summer. We appreciate your patience on this project and realize that it has and will be a major inconvenience for those residents living in that area. We also continue to move forward with preliminary plans to begin work on the sewer separation project as required by the Ohio EPA. This will certainly be on our priority list for the near future with much work being necessary to many different areas of town. This project will include not only new sanitary and storm lines for the Village but also in many cases for each of the affected homeowners as the older lines will not be acceptable. We will provide updated information as we get closer to implementation.
As for other work being planned for this year, we hope to do some resurfacing work on South Wayne Street. We were hoping to be able to tie the work with the sewer project but due to the deterioration of the surface it will be necessary to make some improvements this year.
The annual Park Work Day is scheduled for Saturday, May 7th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The public is invited to come on down and assist in sprucing up our parks prior to summer activities. Rain date is May 15th. We will meet in the Ambassador Pool parking lot. Your help is appreciated!
You have probably read some news reports on the potential for Fort Recovery to see the construction of a much needed cell phone tower. At this writing, two different companies are proceeding with plans to construct towers in our area. Both have talked about having them completed by this summer but I do not have anything more definite at this time. The companies looking to make improvements here are Nextel and Cingular. I have received many inquiries concerning which companies will be involved and the best that I can tell anyone at this point is that both have indicated a possibility of other companies leasing space on their towers to transmit signals. Verizon has been mentioned but I in no way have any verification of this actually occurring. I am sure that more word will be received in the upcoming months and when we hear any news we will certainly make it a part of our monthly reports to the media.
As always we welcome your input and invite you to our Council meetings on the first and third Mondays of each month, 7:30 p.m. in the Village Hall. If you have any specific concerns or questions, feel free to contact Randy, Mayor Broerman or any of the Council Members.