Design meeting to be scheduled
By John A. Ballentine
The location of Toulon’s proposed sanitary sewer lift station will be at the southeast corner of Prairie and Whitaker Streets. That is the lowest site of the area where the lift station will become part of Toulon’s extended sanitary system.
The problem that exists now is raw sewage is being deposited into a waterway at that location, which feeds west in to Indian Creek. According to city engineer Justin Reeise, of the Farnsworth Group, the lift station installation cost will be between $200,000 and $240,000.
Reeise said that he will be contacting manufacturers about purchasing the lift station to determine the exact cost. He suggested that “a design meeting” be held soon, which Mayor Larry Hollis would like to have residents of that area attend who are going to be effected by this project.
Recently those residents received a letter from the Henry-Stark Health Department’s Dorothy David mandating that they change their septic tanks into “holding tanks” to eliminate sending raw sewage into the waterway.
According to Hollis, David has a list of contractors, which excludes local contractors, to pump out the holding tanks on a periodic schedule. That could cost close to $400 each time a contractor is utilized.
Those residents were to meet as a group to discuss the situation, according to Hollis, and possibly file an appeal to the health department, because residents could be fined $100 up to $500 per day for noncompliance to a seven day deadline given to them by the health department.
“That’s very punitive and it’s trying to punish people and that should not be her (David’s) intention,” Hollis stated. “She’s really gone to the extreme, in my opinion.” Originally the health department was going to allow the city resolve the sewer situation as long as progress was being made. But, David was pressured through the involvement of an area resident’s attorney to be on a faster timeline.
David is “telling” residents to put in an expensive septic system, but that would only be utilized for about a year’s time, then once the city’s sanitary sewer line is installed they would be required by State law to hook into that line if their residence is within 300 feet of the city’s sewer system.
In other action, the council approved the $700 expenditure to purchase bike lane and “Welcome to Toulon” signs that would be installed along the bike trail east of Toulon and along the Rock Island Trail.
The uptown sidewalk project is still in the preliminary stages with designing continuing. The project is to revitalize Toulon’s Main Street to improve its aesthetic appearance with new sidewalks and light fixtures.
Discussed was the disrepair of the sidewalk in the 300 block of South Henderson Street. No action came forth about repairing the sidewalk, except to add it to the list of sidewalks requiring repair in the city.
The council approved a $3,962 expenditure to repair garage doors at the city building located near the sewer plant. Also approved was $1,200 to repair the two furnaces at the water plant that are not currently functioning.
Finally, a Tax Increment Finance payment of $9,500 was approved to Julie’s Café market for reimbursement of expenses. And, Ordinance 912 (TIF) was approved that removes two parcels of property from Toulon’s TIF district located at the Stark County Historical Society’s land on West Jefferson Street. This allows the Historical Society to build a new structure at that location.
