CUMBERLAND — One half hour before the Cumberland Village Council’s July 6 meeting, Bob Allen and others from TRIAD Engineering met with Cumberland village officials for a waterline project status report. It looks like work is progressing and is staying close to schedule for completion this fall.
Cumberland Village Council was called to session at 6 p.m. by Mayor Viola Abrams who led the Pledge of Allegiance. Council members present were Charles Gabel, Shirley Rhinehart, Peggy Cunningham, Elizabeth Whited and Gary Stevens. Other present included Village Fiscal Officer Peggy Whited, Village Administrator Dennis Unklesbay, Street Commissioner Eric Poland and Jeff Carr from ADR.
Also at the meeting was Pastor James Gibson from the Presbyterian Church in Cumberland. He gave council a report on some of the recent activities at the church. He mentioned a couple of current and future events at the church, including the renewal of its Community Outreach Program. He asked council to let him know if they knew of anything around the community in which the church should be involved.
Bills totaling $94,113.38 were presented and approved for payment. The fiscal officer went over the monthly financial reports with council.
The village administrator reminded council they needed to make a decision about the different presentations that they had seen concerning wastewater collection.
Jeff Carr from ADR was present for a question and answer session. Council members asked him several important questions in regard to the issue of wastewater management. A lot of the questions were about what funding is out there for these types of projects. He noted there are a several different funding sources for the actual project, however, there needs to be PER completed first.
The PER contains a tailor made plans for an individual community that include what the estimated costs for three types wastewater treatment systems (regional, centralized and decentralized) would be; preliminary testing; suggestions of possible locations for the treatment plants and the compilation of various other facts and figures. The PER report has to be completed and in hand before any serious inquiries regarding funding for a project can be made. With everyone competing for funds, the PER shows grant review boards and lenders that a community is ready to start the project once funding is in place.
Council members voiced concerns including hardships to some village residents on fixed incomes and moving forward with such a serious undertaking while being involved with a current large project. Conversely, they had to take into account that wastewater management is something that is going to have to be dealt with and the longer the wait the higher the cost.
They decided that now is the time to be proactive and passed a motion (5-0) to have ADR prepare PER for the Village of Cumberland. The first thing that needs to be done is to file for a loan for PER which they hope to have completed by July 15.
The bad news is, that the deadline has passed to seek most funding for 2011; however, if council would decide to go ahead with the project there would be plenty of time to get a complete package together for 2012 funding. Just as with any project there are many steps to go through. If possible, Cumberland needs to tackle this project head on instead of being forced into something later on and getting the PER is the first step.
In other action, two resolutions were passed, 2010-07 which dealt with adjusting appropriations and 2010-08 which was the second resolution needed in the new process to place a renewal tax levy on the November ballot. (Both resolutions passed 5-0.)
The fiscal officer went over the highlights from the recent audit. She told council that one of the audit recommendations was to purchase a water billing program for the water clerk. (Council moved to do so 5-0.) She told council that a plaque had been received from NatureWorks to place at the play pod in the village park.
Mayor Abrams reported that the youth from the summer jobs program had been working in the village the day of the council meeting and would be back the next day.
Street Commissioner Poland updated council on all of the ongoing street repairs, ditching projects, and work in the village park. Village Administrator Unklesbay said he had given the fiscal officer 27 of the original easements for the waterline project. Several updates were given by council committees regarding law enforcement in the village and concerns from village residents. Council’s next meeting will be Aug. 2 at 6 p.m. in the Village Building.
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