Upper council talks creation of a city downtown committee

By BRIAN HEMMINGER

City editor

Upper Sandusky Mayor Kyle McColly discussed the creation of a downtown committee for the city of Upper Sandusky during Monday’s city council meeting.

McColly said with the city’s designated outdoor refreshment area legislation having been passed by council and submitted to the state for final approval, the city can move forward with plans for a downtown committee, which would handle projects, grants and other items that would affect drawing more interest in the city’s downtown area.

McColly said he is recommending the committee have two council members and three at-large members from the community, with council member Tom Karcher and local business owner Jeff Steen already having expressed interest in participating.

“We’d need an ordinance to create the committee,” McColly said. “I want to get the process started. More people are talking about our downtown than ever before.”

McColly said the committee should be ready to be created by September and the DORA process should be completed by then. Meeting times and dates also would need to be figured out.

Council President Rick Roberts said he thought the committee was a good idea and asked all council members to brainstorm about the committee and bring their ideas to the first council meeting of August to discuss.

“There are a lot of good things going on downtown,” Roberts said, referencing recent murals that have been placed both permanently and temporarily in the downtown area.

Law Director Ben Buckland said several neighboring cities have downtown committees already established. 

Buckland also provided an update on the city’s DORA legislation. He said he received an email from the state asking for simplified addresses for the DORA corridor and to have a surveyor make a survey of the map the city provided. 

McColly reported the city’s fireworks went well on Friday and he wished everyone a happy Fourth of July.

In the safety committee meeting, McColly reported the city is waiting to hear about the state budget before the police department can move forward with potentially two school resource officers for Upper Sandusky Exempted Village Schools. He said two officers from the department currently are undergoing training to be school resource officers, with one as a primary and one as a backup. 

City Clerk Sarah Bennett reported three applicants have responded to the city’s recent advertisement for new police officers thus far. 

In the service committee meeting, McColly reported a resident asked him about sidewalks in disrepair and a plan the city attempted in 2020 to have sidewalks inspected.

Committee Chairman Dale Rowe said the plan was discussed in the past but never finalized. 

McColly said sidewalk repair currently is the responsibility of homeowners, but said some municipalities have a fund that does a 50-50 split with residents to repair sidewalks due to the increased cost of concrete. He said it can be difficult finding contractors to do small sidewalk repair unless several sidewalks are bundled together for a larger project. 

“We can all agree some spots need attention,” McColly said. “I think we should get the conversation started.”

Council member Aaron Korte said he thought a sidewalk project was a good idea. He said some of the sidewalks on North Eighth Street are in bad shape and said something needs to be put in place. 

Rowe said the city can’t give residents a short deadline to fix sidewalks on their properties and instead would need to give them time.

Korte said inspecting sidewalks in the community and overseeing a sidewalk replacement project could be a good job for someone the city is grooming to become a future supervisor for its service departments.

In new business, the committee accepted a trash pickup contract with the Wyandot County Fairgrounds for the 2023 Wyandot County Fair at the same rate as last year. 

Street and Sanitation Supervisor Brad Taylor reported a company from Norwalk was contacted and it performed grinding in the city, doing work on several roads with a 7-foot mill. He said clean-up for the project took two days and the department is planning to start more paving next week. He said things are going well so far. 

Taylor said a portion of South Eighth Street was skipped due to Columbia Gas doing a utility project this week fixing a leak. He said the street department will hopefully pave next week. 

Korte thanked Taylor for doing an extra east-west alleyway between Johnson Street and Wyandot Avenue.

Taylor said the street department had some leftover materials and it used the materials on the alley. 

Korte also asked if there was an update from the state about improved traffic safety by Love’s near the U.S. 23/30 exit and entrance ramps on the northwest part of the city.

McColly said ODOT recently attended a fatal crash review for an unrelated crash in Wyandot County, but said ODOT was informed about a recent motorcycle crash by Love’s in the past two weeks. McColly shared sentiment from the community about adding either a traffic light or reducing the speed limit by Love’s. 

McColly said ODOT reported it will continue to monitor the area and he said he hopes the numbers will start to tell the story about the dangerous traffic in that area.