EATON — During their meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 13, Preble County Commissioners discussed three ongoing projects, including: the PC Sheriff’s Office purchasing equipment through DTGi for updates, Lewisburg’s CDBG Downtown Revitalization Project, and creating addresses for shelters in Hueston Woods State Park.
The Preble County Sheriff’s Office recently received a grant from the Timken Foundation for $40,000 in computer and technology upgrades. They were going to use that money to get new equipment and software through DTGi, but Sheriff Mike Simpson also hoped to move his server to Microsoft Office 365, which would not be covered by the grant, due to the price of the equipment and software.
Administrative Assistant Kim Keller pointed out she could get the equipment and software for a cheaper price, which would then allow the grant to cover part of Office 365. However, during the meeting on Wednesday, Dec. 13, Keller reported, “After our meeting last week, Brock [Kiser] sent out an email to the auditor’s office, who they recently gave a quote to and were not successful with, and wanted to let us know that they are working with their Dell team, because it turns out there were some issues with their pricing for the quote.
“They found out that they were not giving all the discounts that they were supposed to be giving. It is making a difference on what they are supposed to be quoting to us for the servers. The prices are in line with the cost that I am giving to the Sheriff.”
“If they can match what we’re giving, that’s fine,” Commission President Chris Day said.
“It is fine, I just wanted to let you know. I think our supplier is quite capable of protecting themselves,” Keller said.
Next, commissioners discussed the Village of Lewisburg’s CDBG Downtown Revitalization project.
In late November it was revealed the village had not yet met its quota for building rehabilitation and was running out of funds to do so. As a solution, Village Manager Jeff Sewert and Susan Laux with Mote and Associates decided funds from the sidewalk repair should be transferred into the building rehabilitation fund in order to fulfill the agreement with the state, to which commissioners agreed.
Commission President Chris Day requested Laux have a plan for how to proceed before Christmas.
During the Dec. 13 meeting, Keller said, “I finally got some information back from the village. They had to go back and re-look at things. I am currently in the process of putting that together in a letter format to send back to the state as to where they’re adjusting costs.
“The fire hydrants came in more than they expected and I directed them to make sure on the price of the other items they are purchasing and installing. They’ve done that. Turns out there is going to be only a little amount of sidewalk that will get installed.
“They are going to ask for $200,000 of CDBG money for the building rehab, they will come up with the additional from there. At this point, it is just me making the numbers match up and getting the change from where we are in our current grant to where we expect to go.”
Day asked, “The State was okay with moving in this direction?”
“Yes, I talked to them. The state is amiable to getting this,” Keller said. “This is where they are headed with the Downtown Revitalization, they want to see more of the money spent in rehab, so they are comfortable with this.”
She reiterated, the village will be putting funds into their budget for 2018 and 2019 to fix the sidewalk on their own dime.
The last ongoing project commissioners discussed was the address project in Hueston Woods State Park.
Back in early November, commissioners discussed a project where all the shelters in Hueston Woods would be given addresses, in order to have a better idea of location in the case of an emergency.
Preble County Director of Land Use Management Brad Kramer was called in during the meeting on Dec. 13, to discuss the status of the project with the commissioners, following Kramer requesting an extension on the project.
“I think this can be done in three months and we really haven’t gotten started on it,” he explained. “What I was looking at, this is the Hueston Woods project where we will get road names and addresses updated. That means, working with Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) and Butler County, as well as both sheriff’s offices, to make sure we have the 9-1-1 informed and updated.
“I don’t know all the details, but I know we picked an end-of-year date in the summer, but there were some problems. The contract got executed the first week of November. I’m just having trouble getting in contact with ODNR, with the holidays. Why don’t we make this a January through March 31 thing? Nobody is waiting on this. I’m just trying to be reasonable about the time to make this project work.”
He added, he would be more prepared after the first of the year.
“You’re really not extending it, you’re just changing the date?” Commissioner Rodney Creech clarified.
“However you want to think of it, it’s an addendum to the contract,” Kramer said. “We haven’t really started yet. It’s changing the dates for the project.”
