Lynchburg OWDA LOANS

Just information. These are the OWDA Loans and not all the loans for the Village. They are for sewerage projects and water projects. You may view them online.

Here is a link http://www.owda.org/loantrk/LGALoans.asp?LGAID=533
Some of the early 1990 loans were a result of the plant. 7.96 is the
interest rate on the settlement of the original plant 1372 / 0621 is the
loan number.

Lynchburg Receives More Stimulus Funding & Completes Drinking Water Protection Plan

The Village of Lynchburg recently completed a Drinking Water Source Protection Plan. This is an action plan that identifies possible contaminants to the Lynchburg Drinking Water System and provides protective strategies. This plan was developed by the Drinking Water Protection Team which was composed of the Village Administrator Nicole Oberrecht, Water & Wastewater Supervisor Mark Suitor, and Scott Brown of the Ohio Rural Water Association.
I received a letter from Michael Eggert, Manager of the Ohio EPA Division of Drinking & Ground Waters. This letter commended the Lynchburg for “recognizing the importance of protecting its valuable ground water resource.” The letter formally endorsed the plan by the Ohio EPA. In addition, the Village received a framed certificate from the Ohio EPA.
I thank Nicole, Mark, and Scott for their hard work and continued efforts to keep and maintain our drinking water system in the Village of Lynchburg. Safe drinking water is very important to the health and quality of life in our community. The Lynchburg Drinking Water Source Protection Plan is available to review at the Lynchburg Municipal Building.
On, January 28th, I signed a revised disbursement schedule for ARRA (Stimulas) funding for the Village of Lynchburg. It increased the original amount of $1,602,000 by $127,475.50, to a new amount of $1,729,475.50. This simply means Lynchburg received more stimulus funding in January. The stimulus money is given to Lynchburg to offset the cost of the Wastewater Treatment Plant project Phase II, which is currently underway. This funding does not have to be paid back, and is in addition to the 0% loan monies given by the EPA – DEFA to complete this project. I spoke with Ken Timko, with Burgess and Niple Engineering, and the project is currently under budget. The project cost should be around 2.8 million, which is down from original estimations, which were around 3.5 million
This is good news to the local taxpayers, and I will continue to work to keep the local costs down as much as possible, as we continue toward completion of this unfunded EPA mandate. The bottom line is that the upgrades will provide us with a new sewerage treatment facility, and it will stop raw sewerage overflows during peak rain fall and flow times throughout the year. When the project is complete it will have a positive affect on the health and welfare of our community, as well as the area in and around the East Fork of the Little Miami Watershed.

Jeremy R Shaffer, Mayor
Village of Lynchburg, Highland Co.,Ohio

Official Notice of Violation

I have uploaded the Notice of Violation. I received this today from the State Building Inspector assigned to this project. I hope this explains the snag I mentioned a few days ago. I have other letters, one that I sent to the Engineer regarding the importance of this project and growing concerns. I have received a copy of a letter that was submitted to the Department of Commerce, by Floyd Browne CEO, Jay Shutt, in response to the Violation.
It is important that we understand the repercussions of this, the Village is under an EPA mandate, this project is funded with public Money, the community needs the increased capacity etc... It is important that the project is done correctly the first time. I have been doing my best to make sure that the project is being done in the best interest of the community.

WWTP Phase One Has a Snag

The improvements to the Waste water treatment plant have been going smooth until this week. The expected substantial completion was going to be around the first of May. AT the last construction update, on Friday April 10, there were a few new updates that the Engineer, Floyd Browne, had not taken into account on the electrical portion of the job. The Engineer presented me with work directive three. This was a change order to the electric portion calling for larger wire and service to handle the larger wet well and potable water pumps throughout the project. The contractor noted that they would need extra time due to delays on the electrical and due to some weather days during the course of the winter. This will probably set the substantial completion off by 30 days or more. All parties seemed to believe that the project would be completed in time for the final inspection and final completion dates.
On April 23rd, the State inspectors for building and electrical were present at the job site. The electrical inspector told the Electricians to proceed, however the Engineer needed to submit changes to the State of Ohio for the electrical updates. The building or structural inspector reported that there was a violation, due to the fact he had not been notified of the projects progress and this was the first time he had been on site. He did report a violation and informed the engineer, Floyd Browne, that they were to submit a letter and supporting documentation of the progress and take responsibility for the work that had been done and not inspected. Throughout this project, I had asked about inspections several times, which seemed to fall on deaf ears. This may, and will probably slow the project completion. It will depend on how quickly the Engineering firm works to repair the situation. The site representative, for the engineer, has taken pictures and notes throughout the project.
The contractor, Sunesis, has seemed to have done good work and has been particular throughout the project thus far. I do not want to make this sound good or bad, at this point I do not know. It is very disturbing that the State inspectors have not been kept informed as they should have. I have sent letters and emails expressing my concerns to the engineer, Floyd Browne.
The next scheduled Construction Meeting will be held on Friday May 8th at 10am at the Municipal Building

To Better Inform and Communicate

I have found it hard to find the right tool to flow information easily to the community. There are many devices which I use and many of you may be familiar with those. I send regular articles to the local media, write a newsletter article once a month, send out information by way of email. Still it seems that the daily activities are not logged easily to keep people up to date and informed or at least not as much as I would like for the bar I have rasied. Part of this is due to the fact that the amount of information is overwhelming to me at times, as you may know I do not have a staff in my office, after all it is a small town. Part of it is I try to tackle what is important at the time, and what I can handle, so things are prioritized and put on hold. I came to the realization I can not do everything, even though I would like to, there is not enough time. Lastly, I do not always know what is going on with different parts of the organization all the time. Each department is carrying out a different mission, and they work under their own set of rules and regulations. I may have influence over the departments as Mayor, however when things run smooth, I usually do not hear anything. The Departments of the Village Government are as follows, Wastewater, Water, Law Enforcement (Police), Fiscal Officer, Utilities Clerk, Mayors Court. Currently there is not a street department, however the Village Council does contract maintenance foe streets. The legislature is the Council which is made up of six elected officials, which are broken down into working commitees. At this time the Village government only has 8 employees that are paid for their time or service. Three of which are appointed, which are the Fiscal Officer, Mayors Court Clerk, Magistrate. The other employees are the Utilities Clerk, two Police Officers, Water and Wastwater Supervisors. The Village operates it's Utilities and Service with very minimal staff. This is due largely to budget constraints, however there is an efficiency created by having a small and quality workforce.
I will attempt to use this blog to send information on thoughts and progress of activities as I know about them. Please bear with me, I may not post everyday.