CLAY TOWNSHIP - At the March 5 meeting of the Clay Township board of trustees, President Dave Vore displayed an artist's drawing of the plans of the Ohio Department of Transportation to improve safety along State Route 49 between Interstate 70 and U.S. Route 40.
The plans for the project call for the elimination of the northbound lanes and the median, converting SR 49 into two lanes as far as Pleasant Plain Road, making the northbound exit from Interstate 70 a "T" intersection, and putting a traffic light at Brookville-Salem Road. The entry ramp from SR 49 to eastbound I-70 will be redesigned and resurfaced to lessen skidding or overturning.
Vore later said not much will be done at the Pleasant Plain intersection, "but the traffic lights should slow traffic to improve safety there."
He also told Police Chief John Van Gundy that local motorists using Pleasant Plain and Wellbaum roads to detour around the closed Arlington Road bridge and going as fast as 65, and the chief promised to step up enforcement there.
Brookville City Manager Gary Burkholder spoke at the meeting to correct misinformation from a speaker at the Feb. 19 meeting.
"The fire levy revenue is not going to the general fund in Brookville," he said. "it can only be used for fire service."
He also refuted the rumor that the city is bankrupt, saying "From 2013 to 2016, the city had more that $1million in carryover funds. It needs additional funds to meet operating expenses that have increased every year. The fire levy is needed for the future and to meet the needs of the Verona and Phillipsburg fire departments."
Trustee Jeff Requarth said after contacting officials of all three communities, he has no volunteers for a committee concerning the levy.
"The Brookville people are the ones whose votes defeated it," he said, "but they'll get the biggest benefit from it."
Sixty percent of the levy money will go to the Brookville fire department. Thirty-five percent goes to Phillipsburg and five percent to Verona. Those amounts have been established by the three fire service providers.
The trustees approved a resolution to build a retainment wall around the road department's fuel tank, at a cost not to exceed $3,000, and accepted for review estimates from Road Superintendent Chris Maleski for a new backhoe.
Vore said the budget should have included encumbrances to reserve money all along for this, but admitted, "We have to buy something. This one is 17 years old."
Trustee Steve Woolf asked Fiscal Officer Brad Limbert to set up an encumbrance reserving $31,000 to pay for the new terrorism and disaster warning sirens. He said he waited at the KOA on Wellbaum Road when they were tested that day, and all three-at the township building, at Phillipsburg and on Salem Street in Clayton-could be heard.
(Woolf was recently re-elected to the Board of Directors of the Ohio Township Association.)
Maleski agreed to provide figures on the township's propane usage when Woolf suggested it might "be a big savings" to connect the township building to the natural gas line nearby.
The next regular meeting of the trustees will be at 5 p.m. on March 19 in the township building at 8207 Arlington Road.