By Meladi Brewer

DailyAdvocate.com

VERSAILLES – The Versailles Village Council met Wednesday to discuss parking, garbage trucks, and farm ground rentals. All council members were in attendance.

The third reading of an ordinance prohibiting parking on the east side of Olive Street and the north side of Hickey Avenue within the Village of Versailles and proscribing the penalties for violation thereof has set the ordinance into place. Parking will be prohibited on South Olive Street and not Olive Street as a whole. This ordinance will allow parking on the west side.

The council voted to allow the Village Administrator Mike Busse to purchase a new 2023 Freightliner/Leach rear-load garbage truck from Best Equipment Co. This truck will be purchased through the Sourcewell Cooperative Purchasing Program for $217,614.80.

“This is an item that was in our budget that we intended to order at some point in the year,” Busse said.

He advised Best Equipment Co. had ordered a fleet of the trucks, and this specific one is an extra. He said this truck happens to be the exact one the village is looking for.

“They’re offering it to us at the 2022 price that they quoted us, so we will save several thousands of dollars if we can go ahead and purchase this truck,” Busse said.

The other benefit is the village will be able to get the truck in-service around the first of February instead of having to wait at least a year for the ordered truck to come in. The village also plans on selling a 1996 international trash truck on Gov Deals once the new truck is in service.

Not only was the council talking about getting the truck, they discussed farm ground rent as well. Bids were received for the Farm Ground Lease for the village owned farm ground along Baker Road.

“We had put the 17.607 acres along Baker Road up for bids, and the last time we did that was three years ago,” Busse said.

The highest bidder was Schroders Stock Farm for $292 per acre for a total of $5,141.24. The council voted to award and enter into a contract with Schroders Stock Farm. Busse also intends on proposing the amount to the Reed Road former property owners to see if they would like to farm that wellfield land for the Schroders Stock Farm price. He is currently waiting to hear back from the owners, and if the owners do not wish to negotiate pricing, the council will have to vote to bid out the land or discuss other actions in order to move forward.

Busse advised that with the Wellfield Development, the village had closed on the Kettler property Wednesday morning, and the street department personnel have completed a driveway on the west side property and are working on installing the driveway on the east side of the property.

“The PTI is almost completed. It took us a little longer to get the paperwork completed on that, but hopefully we will be submitting that to Ohio EPA on Monday or Tuesday,” Busse said.

The village is continuing to explore financing for the project.

The next Versailles Council meeting will take place Wednesday, Jan. 25, 7 p.m., in EMS Building, 320 Baker Road, Versailles.

To contact Daily Advocate Reporter Meladi Brewer, email [email protected].