MOUNT VERNON — Mount Vernon city officials met with ODOT representatives this week to discuss the project to widen Coshocton Avenue according to Mount Vernon Mayor Richard Mavis.
“ODOT was up here Tuesday morning,” Mavis said. “We discussed the widening project. They’ve had appraisers working on the ground we are going to need to use both temporary and permanent easements. They are nearly finished with the appraisals. When they are, the residents in that area will be contacted, first by letter and then personally by a representative of ODOT to talk with them about what’s needed. That will happen fairly early this spring. The project is scheduled to go to in January or February 2012. So, residents along that corridor will have the opportunity to talk with ODOT negotiators.”
The safety project runs from Sychar Road to the traffic signal at TSC. The widening project starts at the Center Run Bridge and goes to Shalimar Drive.
Mavis said officials also met with the Clinton Township Water and Wastewater Board to work out details of the accounting the city does for the township on delinquencies.
The city provides water service to a few customers along Harcourt Road and wastewater service to about 1,300 Clinton residents. The wastewater system is hooked into Mount Vernon’s treatment plant. The city bills customers for the wastewater service in addition to water service for those few who have it.
Through a complex arrangement, the city bills Clinton residents for water and wastewater usage and then returns part of the fee paid to the township to reduce its debt service on the township’s wastewater system.
“Not many people have water service in Clinton Township,” Mavis said. “If the customers who just have wastewater service are delinquent in paying their bill, there’s no water service to turn off. So after two quarters of non-payment, we get a lien against the property owner and add that to their property tax bill.”
Because the water board relies on the money it collects for its fees, members requested a more up to date accounting of money assessed and collected.
In other news Mavis reported:
•Mavis, Dave Glass (safety-service director) and Cameron Keaton (city engineer) have been meeting with city department heads to evaluate their performance and the performance of the departments. The trio will then go before City Council to make recommendations for raises for department heads.
•There was a delay in getting city trucks on the street Monday night to deal with the snow storm because the plows and sanders had been removed from city trucks.
“We usually get pretty good weather forecasts,” Mavis said. “But I think someone misinterpreted what was going to happen that night. It caused a delay of about an hour in getting (plows) on the streets.
