Walbridge holds August village council meeting

Members of the Walbridge village council held their latest meeting on Aug. 20.

Mayor Ed Kolanko reported that a 30-plus-year-old HVAC unit on the municipal building’s roof has malfunctioned. He is getting quotes on options to either fix it or replace it. He’ll bring those to council members later to decide what’s best.

Kolanko has started work on the 2026 budget along with fiscal officer Andy Tepper with the goal of having draft copies to council by the beginning of October. Once that happens, they will do three readings, giving time for feedback.

Village officials decided on dates and times for two upcoming holiday events. Trunk-or-treat will be Oct. 25 at 3 p.m., while the village tree lighting will take place Dec. 7 at 6 p.m.

In the safety and criminal justice report, councilwoman Caryl Stone said she was hoping to have an August event with the police department and EMS, but she hasn’t received responses. She’s not giving up on having something in September with car seat and golf cart inspections.

Kolanko provided an update on the timing of the Walbridge Road joint project with Lake Township, which was a go for 2025 before it was identified that the culvert needed to be upgraded.

The Wood County Engineer’s Office said they would pay for all the improvements to the culvert as long as Lake Township and Walbridge paid for the planning and engineering, which was previously agreed to at a prior council meeting.

“It’s going to take a little bit of time to do the testing, find where the pipelines are at, where the utility lines are, etc.,” Kolanko said. “The culvert has to be done first before the road project is. It would be silly to do the road project and then have heavy equipment beat up the new road.”

Thus, the engineer is currently making sure that those funds can be pushed back into 2026, which everybody feels pretty confident that it can be, Kolanko said.

“As much as I was telling you guys that I was hopeful that this work will be done in 2025, it will probably be done in 2026,” he said. “That way the culvert will be done, and then the road will be done, and it'll be done the right way.”

Kolanko and village administrator Todd Robson are working with the owner of the corner property near The Skillet and the library to get it repaved.

“We're trying to do the right thing for the community and repave that entire section,” Kolanko said. “That is work that is currently ongoing. We may come to you and add that to our project list for 2025.”

Kolanko has also asked David Bowers of Bowers Asphalt to look at options with Ivy Court as “it’s kind of beat up pretty bad.”

Old business

Ordinance 18, which would authorize the purchase of a 2025 Silverado for the Walbridge maintenance department from Dunn Chevy, remained tabled.

A pair of ordinances certifying the collection of assessments to the Wood County auditor for the cutting of grass and weed whacking and placing those on the tax duplicate under provisions in the Ohio Revised Code 731.54 for 14 properties were passed.

One was passed as an emergency in order to get the assessments in by Sept. 1, which makes sure that they’re correctly placed on the real estate taxes prior to the next bill going out. The other had its third reading before being passed.

New business

Looking ahead to 2026, improvements to Allen and Holly were already approved with a grant, and in addition to that, village officials are looking at applying for an Ohio Public Works Commission (OPWC) grant to take care of additional streets.

With an application due date of Sept. 12, Kolanko is scheduled to meet with the engineer to go over options on four different stretches of roads that could be included in that application.

Awarding of those grant-recipients wouldn’t come until 2026 with work being done in 2027.

        In related news, the first reading of a resolution authorizing the village administrator to prepare and submit an application to participate in the OPWC’s state capital improvement and or local transportation improvement program and to execute contracts as required took place.

Ordinance 25, which authorizes the supplemental appropriation of various fund resources with the Village of Walbridge, had its first reading. It would help take care of things like potential vehicle purchases for the police and HVAC repair or replacement.

“We would need to kind of move money directly out of our savings into our budget to purchase those,” Kolanko said. “That's what this ordinance does. This ordinance does not ask council to give Todd (Robson) or I permission to go out and buy things yet. All it does is move money into our budget.”

There was also the first reading of an ordinance authorizing the mayor and the Village of Walbridge to renew an agreement with Sander Farms LLC for the cash farm rental of parcels as listed in the agenda, which consists of 54.21 acres of village land for the use of agricultural production.

“Ed Sanders, or Sanders Farms, is our current farmer that handles all our farming needs, and he has religiously and faithfully paid us our rent for the cash crop every year,” Kolanko said. “He is asking to continue the relationship, and we agreed to a 10 percent increase in the cash amount of the crop.”

Pool finances improve

It was reported that the pool is currently operating at a $7,500 loss year-to-date, and it is expected to be around $8,000 by the end of the season, which is vastly better than previous years.

“I'm actually pretty happy about that,” Kolanko said. “It's been a warm summer, but the guys have been doing a good job regulating the chemicals. They identified some early leaks in the pool that were patched up, so there’s been some really nice maintenance efforts.”

Kolanko added that instituting pool rentals after hours has helped as well. They’ve had a lot of rentals between 6 and 8 p.m.

Robson said that lifeguards have taken on some extra duties, and that’s helped. They also cut back on some maintenance overtime.

“Everybody’s been working together,” Robson said. “It's been a real nice team effort from the whole group.”

Mayor’s Report

Kolanko recommended the hiring of Brian Ballenger as village solicitor, effective Sept. 2.

He also made a motion to move Chris Rawski (maintenance) from the seasonal rate of pay ($14.86/hour) to the step 1 rate of pay ($17.28) based on the exceptional service he is providing and going above and beyond in the department’s time of need.

“Chris was doing a lot more than just cutting grass, which we were paying him the seasonal rate for, but Chris stepped up in a lot of ways, whether it's trimming trees or helping out in the road group,” Kolanko said.

Kolanko said there’s a lot of technology needs in the village, so he made a motion to hire Chris Bennett as an independent contractor at a rate of $30 per hour, but not to exceed $1,500 for the calendar year.

"We have a lot of technology needs in our village,” Kolanko said. “We did get Spectrum all set up for the park, so we do have active internet there. What we're lacking is somebody with some technology knowledge to hook everything up. We have some needs here in the office.

“Chris met with our admin team and seemed to have a pretty good grasp on what would be needed and his ability to kind of put that stuff into motion.”

Kolanko said he is getting more details on potentially acquiring additional vehicles for the police department.

A recommendation was made to rehire Chris Mullins, who previously worked for the village a couple years ago, as a part-timer in the police department at the starting pay rate of $24.53 per hour.

Dylan Berg, a full-time employee in the maintenance department, has tendered his resignation with a two-week notice.

In turn, Kolanko made a motion to move Jay Blazevich from part-time to full-time based on his performance and a recommendation from his supervisor, James Stacy. He will remain at step 1 pay ($17.63/hour).

Caleb Tobias will move from part-time down to seasonal in the streets department as he is balancing several jobs after securing his fire/EMT license.

Republic Services update

The village’s contract with Republic Services is coming up for renewal within about six months, so the village will be putting together a request for proposals and sending those out to all refuse companies so they can see who's out there and who wants to service the village of Walbridge.

“Really that's us doing our due diligence,” Kolanko said. “What's the best thing for the village? Obviously, there's some residents who are disgruntled by the service, and I understand that. But we still have a contract, and we're going to honor that contract.

 “What we can do is check out the renewal --- who's out there, what kind of rates they have. That way we’re doing our due diligence as the administration.”

Next meeting

Council is slated to meet again on Sept. 3.