By Meladi Brewer

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — Commissioners made addendums and authorized grants for three village projects. Commissioners Matt Aultman and Marshall Combs were present.

An addendum to the agenda was made regarding the opening and reading of sealed bids for the Darke County Board of Developmental Disabilities.

“They changed the date. They moved it back one week because of the changes that needed to be made and notified in the contract for the contractors,” Aultman said.

The new opening date will be June 6, and there will be an updated engineer’s estimate to go along with it when it comes back for next Thursday’s session. The original engineer’s estimate was between $200,000 and $225,000. Unfortunately, due to companies having their summer work already scheduled for the year, the original deadline of Aug. 31 is not feasible for most. The one bid they had received was going to be well over the engineer’s estimate.

“Originally, they wanted to get the work done by Aug. 31 of this year,” Aultman said. “Now they will put a price in for August work, then a date for an alternative in October, and a date for an extra alternative for next year.”

This is to see if this will get more contractors willing to bid and change their price due to having more time for the project without any rush. The addendums are for those changes, and the goal is to get more individuals interested in the project.

Darke County Prosecuting Attorney R. Kelly Ormsby, III spoke to the commissioners about an application to employ outside council for the Broadband project. They already had an outside attorney working to maintain the legal documents and communications between the commissioners and Broadband; however, due to the attorney switching law firms, they have to ensure their paperwork is in order on the court side.

“Just to be safe and correct we are asking the commissioners to approve this application, so I can present it again to the Common Please Court,” Ormsby said.

The commissioners also filed a DCPY2024 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG). It is for small cities to give them feasible priority to activities which would benifit low moderate income families or aid in the prevention or examination of slums or blight.

“We get allocated $232,000 on a biannual year, so we have a pot. This one here, we actually picked up a little bit for planning which is above and beyond the $232,000,” Aultman said.

The total for the projects will come out to be $268,100. This will cover three projects and general administration and fair housing expenses as well.

“Ansonia is going to do an assessment of their waterlines, assessment of their water meters, and just general assessment of the village, so they can apply for other grants and funding to update as needed and other unknowns,” Aultman said.

Susan Laux with the grants department added this assessment will help the village to look into water meters, as the village is currently not metered.

“In New Weston we have some separation of road ways, so they are going to go in in some of those separated areas or areas with movement to grind and repave,” Aultman said.

In the filing of the application, the county will also pledge $36,100 from the Darke County Revolving Loan Fund towards the project submitted by the Village of New Weston for their project that has ab estimated cost of $88,000.

“In Palestine, they have been stepping through the town since we’ve done the sewering, and this will be step three of their sidewalk and curb project,” Aultman said.

Aultman said Palestine is getting funding from different pools to get it all done. Currently, the 36 section in town is being worked on, and they have done sections north of 36 in a previous grant cycle. The third step would be for the south section. The remaining cost will be for administration, so they can put the proper paperwork together in house.

The $268,100 total breaks down into $20,000 for the Village of Ansonia, $88,000 (plus the outside $36,100 from the Loan Fund) for New Weston, $114,100 for the Village of Palestine, and $46,000 for General Administration and Fair Housing.

More resolutions regarding the Arcanum CDBG project will be passed at Tuesday’s Regular Session. The commissioners meet every Tuesday and Thursday for Regular Session starting at 1:30 p.m. in the Administrative Building; 520 S Broadway, Greenville. These sessions are open and welcome to the public.

To contact Daily Advocate Reporter Meladi Brewer, email [email protected]