BRADFORD — Bradford Council met for a short meeting on Thursday evening, approving the 2019 tax budget estimates.
The council approved adopting the 2019 tax budget for Miami and Darke counties. It waived the three-reading rule for each of the resolutions. According to the 2019 tax budget, the total balance of all of the village’s funds estimated for Dec. 31, 2019 is approximately $1.2 million.
During Village Administrator Rick Looker’s report, Looker discussed with the council the possibility of going back to Spectrum to be the village’s internet provider.
The village currently gets free internet from Hometown Cable for allowing Hometown Cable to place equipment on the village’s tower, but the internet access has been unreliable at times for the village employees.
“Last week we were down for four days without internet,” Looker said.
Council member Deb Warner asked who the village’s phone provider is, and Looker said that it was Spectrum.
No decisions were made during that meeting.
Looker also told the council that he will bring legislation before the council at a future meeting that would change the criminal violation of a property maintenance violation from a minor misdemeanor to a fourth-degree misdemeanor in order to force the offenders to go to court and address the issue. Reoccurring offenders also could be cited with higher charges of a third-degree misdemeanor.
Brice Schmitmeyer, president of Access Engineering, also visited the council’s meeting on Thursday evening to give a brief update of the village’s projects. Access Engineering is working on the design for the Harrison Avenue reconstruction project.
“We want to bid that this fall,” Schmitmeyer said.
Schmitmeyer also discussed one of the village’s application’s for Ohio Public Works Commission funding included improvement working for the sanitary sewer lines in the southeast quadrant of the village due to an old line possibly having sanitary sewer overflow issues.
Council member Jeff Wirrig asked if the work on those sanitary sewer lines would include running a camera down in the lines to find other sources of water coming into the sewer lines. Schmitmeyer said that it would.
“That would be looked at in detail,” Schmitmeyer said.
Later, council member Galen Balmert mentioned a catch basin on Harrison Avenue in need of repair that will be replaced during the Harrison Avenue reconstruction project. Balmert said that he had heard concerns from people in the village about the catch basin.
Looker said that the village will look into getting something to cover the catch basin. He mentioned that another village employee had previously looked into getting something to cover it and that it might cost approximately $1,000.
