Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Walbridge council members approved the hiring of Dave Shaffer as the village’s new administrator at its latest meeting on April 1, which also included discussion about potential improvements to fire response and the hiring of Andrew Thomasson as a new part-time police officer.
Shaffer’s new position within the village creates an adjusted positional structure where he will also assume maintenance supervisor duties, and he will be paid $48,000 per year for both jobs.
Previously, the village had a part-time village administrator and a full-time maintenance supervisor as separate positions, so this new role essentially takes one and a half full-time jobs and consolidates it into one.
The council took care of the adjusted job description and salary structure with two ordinances passed via emergency measure.
Shaffer spent nearly 40 years with Lake Local Schools, where he was a 1982 graduate. He served many roles over that time, but he retired as the school’s long-time athletic director in June 2023, and he also led the school’s maintenance department. He guided the athletic department through the devastation of the June 2010 tornado, as well.
Mayor Ed Kolanko was excited to hire Shaffer, who was in attendance for the meeting. Dating as far back prior to Kolanko being elected as mayor, Walbridge previously had a working village administrator who served in a full-time capacity, and that kind of segued into a part-time role in recent years.
“This is a new chapter for us,” he said. “That pendulum is swinging back here with Dave in that we're going to have a working administrator who's going to be here. I know one of council's concerns I've heard over the years is if we need to talk to the village administrator, what's his hours? We know that Dave's going to be here from 7, 7:30 to 3, 3:30 every day.
“I look forward to this change. He brings a wealth of experience from his time at Lake Schools. He was very instrumental in the rebuilding of those buildings after the tornado as well as the new elementary. He ran a very successful athletic program. We're excited to have him on board.”
Although Shaffer is assuming additional duties in comparison to having two people in his new role previously, Kolanko said the department still has multiple full-time maintenance staff members who will assist.
Council member Kristen Angelo questioned why the position wasn’t posted publicly, but Kolanko defended the decision in response. Along with interim village administrator, Kelley Amstutz, Kolanko said he met with Shaffer after he had shown interest following the resignation of Todd Robson, the previous village administrator.
“We had some dialogue, and it was a conversation that kind of matured and grew into something that I think that for both parties made a lot of sense,” Kolanko said. “I don't feel that there was any need to go outside of the candidate that we had in front of us. Whether or not you appreciate it or not, it’s my role as mayor, or the next mayor, or whoever the mayor is, to bring people forward, and I feel very strongly that Mr. Shaffer is going to make a great village administrator.”
FIRE RESPONSE
With the village recently experiencing two structure fires, most recently on March 22 at a residence on West Union Street, council discussed what, if anything, could have been done better in terms of the response, especially in terms of using that information going forward. The first fire occurred in late February on Meadow Lane.
The discussion started when council president Thomas Urbina brought up the idea of sending a letter to the Lake Township Fire Department, which provides service to Walbridge, to gather a better understanding of what the village’s fire department does.
“They’re doing a service for us, and I think it would be beneficial for us to have a better understanding of that,” he said. “When we see fires like that, it's really eye-opening.”
Urbina stressed that it isn’t intended as an accusatory response.
“It's just an understanding,” he said. “Those two fires ... one on my street ... it's like wow that's scary, and it makes you want some answers.”
For Kolanko, he said transparency is even more important considering the township passed a levy in November 2024 to fund its fire and EMS departments, which funded maintenance, equipment, training, and paid-per-call staffing.
“We need to look at going back to when the fire department in Lake Township asked for more money from the voters, (which) was to fill in a lot of these gaps, whether it was staffing, whether it was equipment, things of that nature,” Kolanko said. “And that passed. My concern is that, are we at full staffing? When these calls happen, are we the first ones to the scene? Are we there or are we being backed up? What's the time that is taking them to get to the call?
“There's a lot of questions that we have, like when we have two main structure fires, total losses. I'm sure that they're doing the job that they're supposed to do. But we're doing our due diligence by asking questions and making sure that that service is where it needs to be.”
Kolanko said he reached out to Lake Township fire chief Brandon Rosebrock asking if there’s anything the village can do, with added emphasis because the village’s ISO rating is potentially set to decrease, which would in turn increase property insurance rates. ISO ratings judge fire departments on how they are doing in relation to organizational standards.
“Obviously, with the ISO rating under review to go down, there are certain deficiencies that exist within that department,” Kolanko said. “Can they be improved? Are the structure fires something that could have been prevented if they got their little bit quicker? I don't know, and I think we're just doing our job as leaders to get some of those questions answered.”
Kolanko said he has gotten little response from the township, especially in terms of questions such as what a typical response should consist of.
“When we see two structure fires like that in a very short period of time, that's a great question, and I think that's one that I need to get an answer to,” he said. “What is the expected time to turn around to be at that fire? Is it two minutes? Is it ten minutes? I know there's a lot of variables, and I need to look at the call records to find out how long it took to get to them.
“Are there things that we can do as a community to help prevent that stuff or to help push fire safety, or to help educate our residents as best we can? We look around town and see property maintenance issues. We see a lot of houses with a lot of garbage or extra stuff throughout the property. Those things could be potential fire hazards. We need to do a proactive thing. I think that’s where communication (comes in), and I know sometimes residents get upset when we try to get them to clean up their properties. But when you look at situations that happen with total loss fires, sometimes they need to be able to clean it.”
NEW OFFICER HIRED
Council members also approved the hiring of Thomasson as a new part-time police officer in the village, effective April 5 at a rate of $25.51 per hour. He was sworn in at the meeting.
“He’s working right now at the hospital as a sergeant, so (he has) some command experience,” Kolanko said. “I know that our HR committee has already discussed this, so we're looking forward to having (him) on board.”
The department is at full 24/7 department coverage, Kolanko said. They are still looking at potentially adding a couple part-time type positions, but those are still in the application/review phase.
DRY CREEK UPDATE
Kolanko said that the widening project at Dry Creek is progressing and slated to be finished soon. The long-time project is being paid for through a $500,000 grant from the federal government.
“It’s actually increasing the size of the creek,” Kolanko said. “We had to give up about eight to nine acres of land, but they're also putting in additional vegetation, they're changing the slopes, and they're making it so really it's like a two-state system. When the water comes in, it kind of has a place to kind of filter into as well, which hopefully will alleviate some of the water pressure along Dry Creek.”
The village owns a 34-acre portion of Walbridge Road east of East Broadway that includes approximately 0.28 linear miles of stream in Dry Creek.
Kolanko said in 2024 that one of his complaints is about the water issue with the village’s creeks backing up, and this project will help with that while also making it somewhat of a park area.
“The property itself, it does have three or four pipelines that go through it,” he said. “It took some time getting with the pipeline companies and a lot of the engineering behind that. When it's done, we'll have a ribbon cutting. It will be a nice thing for the community.”
Kolanko said that the work will be done prior to the repaving of Walbridge Road, which is slated for June.
OTHER ITEMS
Council members approved renewing $519,046.80 of village funds into another CDARS CD at State Bank at a rate of 3.5 percent.
Also approved is the rehiring of fifth-year lifeguards Jessie Mickens and Timothy Rickenberg, as well as third-year lifeguard Addison Boehm. Additionally, pending successful passing of their lifeguard exams, the village will also hire Alyxandra Boehm, Sagan Schroyer, Illona Hosey, and Isaac Kaman as new lifeguards.
Council member Karen Baron said the parks and rec committee that she oversees met and recommended passing an ordinance to amend the pool fees for children under the age of five and seniors aged 65 and older to $5. That officially passed later in the meeting.
Baron’s committee also discussed adding lights to the new Walbridge signs and future improvements to the local ball fields.
