By Meladi Brewer

DailyAdvocate.com

VERSAILLES — Village Administrator Kyle Francis updated the council on how village projects are progressing.

In regards to the Phase I segment of the Reed Road Raw Water Transmission (in-town portion), Brumbaugh Construction has completed the pipe installation as of the week of April 13.

“They are currently working this week, April 24, to perform their pressure and bacteria testing on their portion of the project,” Francis said.

All air release manholes have been finished with their internal guts, and Brumbaugh has also started on trench restoration in areas of the project. Shinn Bros. on Phase II (the out of-town portion) has also completed all their pressure and bacteria testing on the Raw Water Transmission Main Project.

“Their portion of the project is now ready to transport water from the new Reed Road wellfield to their contract termination point at Industrial Parkway,” Francis said.

Francis said that as long as the water main testing finishes with Brumbaugh Construction by early this week, it is potential that the new wellfield could be operational with pumping water back to the village as late as the end of the first full week in May.

“We are wrapping up some remaining items with Electro Controls who is working on the remote telemetry and SCADA to operate the new wells remotely from the water plant,” Francis said.

With the “good rainfalls” over the past few months, Francis said the area water table continued to rebound over the past few months. Plant operators performed well logs on the Village’s existing ten water production wells recently and water levels have come back up according to those results.

“Water restrictions will be reviewed for repeal once the new wellfield is up and running for a duration of time to ensure that everything is running in stable fashion,” Francis said.

With the close of one project nearing, the village applied for a demolition grant with the Darke County Commissioners for the former water treatment plant at 200 Grand Avenue. Francis announced that their application had been approved.

“In speaking with Commissioner Matt Aultman, the commissioners intend to place the county demolition project out for bid in June with demolition to take place hopefully in July/August,” Francis said.

There will be no local costs to the village to be a part of this program, so no payments will be necessary from the community. However, village customers who have recently noticed an issue with online utility payments won’t have to worry any longer about their payment options.

Francis announced they are currently working with SmartBill to correct an issue with the online credit card payments for utility bills by customers.

“The existing SmartBill online credit card payment service had an unplanned, an unexpected failure at the beginning of April that wasn’t discovered until customers began to attempt to pay their utility bills,” Francis said.

An issue with the system arose in which the payment service through SmartBill lost its link to the banking partner that moved the payment to the village. This link cannot be re-established as the current SmartBill program is obsolete. The village had not been informed about the change, and the banking company that was used by SmartBill no longer supports the legacy program.

“This issue did not involve customers who already have in place automatic bill payments through their bank to the Village via ACH,” Francis said. “Utility/Administration personnel have worked feverishly with SmartBill to migrate to their new online credit card payment system.”

SmartBill is also working as quickly as possible to have the new system up in time for the utility bills that will be going out at the end of the month. Customers who wish to pay their utility bills with a credit card can still make such payments by stopping by the office or over the phone by contacting the Village Office during normal business hours from 7:30 a.m. until 4 p.m.

For questions, call the Village Office at 937-526-3294.

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