Design agreement OK’d for phase 2 of project

ThisWeek CW 09/22/2011

http://www.thisweeknews.com/content/stories/canalwinchester/news/2011/09/21/design-agreement-okd-for-phase-2-of-project.html

Canal Winchester City Council voted unanimously Monday to approve a design agreement with Columbus for phase 2 of Gender Road improvements.

The measure was approved as an emergency in order to meet project deadlines.

Construction services administrator William Sims said the agreement names Canal Winchester as the project lead.

“We’ll be the lead agency on the project. Columbus’s involvement, other than review and comment, will be to provide construction inspectors — but we’ll be managing the job,” Sims said.

“This is a cooperative agreement between our cities because of the location,” he said. “The agreement is for design phase only and it outlines the process and standards we’ll adhere to. Because we’re using Ohio Department of Transportation money, we’ll have to follow their standards.”

Phase 2 funding includes an Ohio Public Works Commission grant of $2,095,847 and a Safety Funds Grant from the Ohio Department of Transportation for $2.1 million.

He and public service director Matt Peoples told the service committee during a meeting prior to the regular council session on Monday that phase 1 of the Gender Road project will be finished by the end of October.

“We have Phase 2 design work ongoing and we’ll have our 90 percent design plan submitted by the end of the month,” Peoples said.

Sims said the only thing left for Phase 1 is the installation of back-ordered light poles, which are scheduled for an October delivery. Sod planting and final detail work on the medians will be complete this week.

Also at the service committee meeting, Peoples presented a new agreement to contract with the Franklin Soil and Water Conservation District for 2012.

“Franklin Soil and Water do a variety of tasks, mostly education-based with second- through fourth-graders, to help us meet our compliance for our stormwater permit through the Ohio EPA,” he said.

According to Peoples, the average annual cost to the city for services provided by the conservation district varies from year to year, but averages $3,000 with a maximum cost of $6,000. This includes GIS mapping of all the city’s stormwater runoffs.

“Through this agreement with Franklin Soil and Water, we get a 40-percent reduction in cost of what they normally charge for these things,” he said. “It depends on what we have them do as to how much we end up paying.”

He said the engineering firm EMH&T Inc. “helps us a lot with our EPA compliance, but for some things, we can get them done much cheaper through Franklin Soil and Water.”

The stormwater utility provides funding for compliance activities. In the coming year, Canal Winchester will be required to set up agreements with private owners that have retention ponds in order to maintain compliance, according to Peoples.

“We couldn’t do this without the help of Franklin Soil and Water and EMH&T,” he said.

The city will flush fire hydrants through Oct. 14 and will be running leaf vacuums from Oct. 3 through Dec. 9.

Canal Winchester’s fourth annual “tire sweep” of Walnut Creek is scheduled for 8 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 8. Urban forester Dick Miller said 120 tires were removed from the stream last year and the city would like to try to match that this year.

The next service committee meeting will start at 5:45 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 17, at Town Hall, 10 N. High St.