JEFFERSON —
More than six years after the county received an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency order to construct public sewers here, the project remains a hot topic for Trustee John Kusar and several residents.
Commissioners held a public meeting on the project Wednesday evening to update residents on its status and the process of connecting homes and businesses to the $2.8 million system. Shawn Aiken, water resources manager for CT Consultants, said the project has been accepted by commissioners as substantially complete, but agreed there is still restoration work on the punch list of issues that the contractor, Mr. Excavator of Kirtland, must address before final payment is issued.
Aiken said the county still has about $100,000 of funding that the contractor won’t receive until the project is fully accepted.
Kusar told commissioners it is time they stop playing along with the contractor and issue an ultimatum: either fix the remaining restoration issues within a specified period of time or seek restitution through the bond the contractor posted.
“We need a timeline from the county commissioners,” said Kusar, who suggested that the contractor be given four weeks.
Commissioners Dan Claypool and Peggy Carlo rejected Kusar’s suggestion.
“We’re working with Mr. Excavator all the time,” Claypool told Kusar.
“Danny, if you worked half as hard as you talk, it would get done,” Kusar shot back.
“We will not pick a time tonight,” Carlo told Kusar.
At issue is the condition of four roads in the center of town — Betts, Maple, Mill and Chestnut — which were dug up to accommodate the new sewer lines. There are issues with settling, raised manholes and puddling of rain.
“There is no reason that our roads are like this,” Kusar said. “We need our roads fixed. We’re going to have a real issue with snowplows and their plows hitting the manhole covers because the road is sinking.”
The complaint is not a new one for the board, which has pushed hard in recent weeks to complete the project that was supposed to be completed a year ago. The system itself is operational and four property owners have tapped into it. About 70 existing homes and businesses will need to tie in order to meet the EPA mandate.
County Health Commissioner Ray Saporito said the deadline for connecting will be July 1, 2013. That date drew a response from Route 45 resident Nelson Hejduk, who said property owners had been told all along that they would have two years to connect once the project was accepted. And he said the project is only substantially complete and questioned if the countdown should have already begun.
Saporito said six to 12 months is the typical time frame for connecting to a mandated project.
Residents also questioned commissioners about the $4,200 tap-in fee for single-family residents and how the fee will be calculated for commercial and public-use structures. Property owners also will have to pay to have a licensed contractor connect their plumbing to the new sewer laterals and destroy their existing septic systems.
Both of those items drew questions from the crowd.
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