Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
The latest village council meeting in Walbridge on Feb. 18 lasted approximately 20 minutes, but several important items were on the agenda.
Council had its third reading of resolution 10-2026, which implements a memorandum of understanding between the village of Walbridge and the city of Northwood for police dispatch services.
Council member Kristen Angelo made a motion to table it until the request for proposal from Lake Township is received. That motion failed without a second, and fellow council member Joel Mass made the motion to approve, which was seconded and subsequently approved. Angelo was the lone no vote.
Administrator transition
The other key topic was appointing executive assistant Kelley Amstutz as the interim village administrator after the resignation of Todd Robson the week prior.
Mayor Ed Kolanko said Robson left in good standing with no issues.
“When Todd came to us, I think he had the impression of being here for about a year,” Kolanko said. “He's been here for about two, and I think he just has a lot going on in his personal life that he kind of felt that he wasn't probably doing the job to the expectations that we probably wanted him to. He decided at this point that would be a good time to separate from service.”
Ohio Revised Code requires a village administrator, and council approved the appointment of Amstutz, who will serve her current role and the administrator role concurrently.
“If you don't know Kelley's ability by now, you're living in a deep, dark cave,” Kolanko said. “She does a fantastic job for us. But just a little bit, just to remind you, when she worked at Oregon, she did assist the city administrator there. When she was in Northwood, she assisted Bobby Anderson, who was a city administrator in Northwood, so she has knowledge of the position. I think it's an easy transition for me and hopefully for us to move her into that role, and then we'll discuss permanent plans shortly.”
Projects update
Kolanko reported that he has been working with Lake Township administrator and police chief Mark Hummer in communicating with the village’s engineer, as well as the Wood County engineer that’s handling the culvert project, to get a consensus on what they will pay for.
“We’re still working on it,” Kolanko said. “If you saw some work being done at that culvert area on Walbridge Road, that is kind of part of this project. Columbia Gas had to move their line over to be safe, so that's what Columbia Gas was doing on Walbridge Road.”
Kolanko also said he will be meeting with Kleinfelder soon to discuss the Allen and Holly streets project.
Cybersecurity resolutions
As required by the state, council had third readings and subsequent passing of several resolutions, including ones adopting a ransomware payment policy pursuant to the Ohio Revised Code Section 964, a cybersecurity program pursuant to Ohio House Bill 96, a cybersecurity incident response and reporting policy, and a data backup and disaster recovery policy.
Lone ordinance
Council also had a second reading of an ordinance authorizing the police chief to enter into an agreement with Penta Career Center for authorized services to be performed by students on Walbridge police vehicles.
Administrator’s report
The maintenance team has completed the clearing of debris from the CSX area. When the weather breaks, they will rake up the area.
The department is coordinating the fabrication and replacement of village signage.
Vehicle inspections and equipment checks are in progress, and the department is assessing the lighting throughout the village to make sure that everything is working as it should.
The forks on the skid steer have been replaced and are working great.
Drainage conditions due to recent snowmelts are being monitored. They haven’t noticed any significant pooling or flooding issues at the time.
Work with the jet vac will pick up as the weather breaks.
Annual spring brush pickup has been scheduled for April 20-24.
Mayor’s report
The annual renewal premium for the village’s liability insurance was approved to be paid in the amount of $27,332. Kolanko said it’s pretty consistent with what they’ve paid in the past, and it is for 12 months.
Kolanko reported that the police department lost connectivity with seven MDT units within the police vehicles. During the transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11, the current ones didn’t have the right chips to comply with added security features. AT&T has provided a temporary solution, but action was needed.
Kolanko asked for the purchase of three Dell Pro Rugged MDT units for a total of $10,696.92. He said there was capital money already allocated in the budget for the police department, which can be used to pay for them.
“The fact is we need to upgrade our technology,” he said. “I'm not looking to purchase seven of these units, but this is something that we need. We don't really have an option. We need to buy these. The other option was looking at a Panasonic brand, which was probably double the cost of what these Dells are. They are rugged. They're kind of used a little bit more drop. You can drop and kick them, even if that's not what you should be doing, but they are rugged by definition and they do a good job. We do need three. I may ask you guys to support buying a couple more in the near future, but three will get us to where we need to be and have the safety and the connectivity for our officers when they're responding to calls.”
It was approved.
