CENTERBURG — Council members added an ordinance to Monday’s village council agenda authorizing Village Administrator Teri Wise to contract for new street lights.

V3 Companies will install 15 new street lights on Main Street. The cost is not to exceed $215,000.

V3 submitted two bids: $205,000 and $215,000.

“They would basically be pretty and be like a flashlight on a pole,” Wise said of the lights in the $205,000 bid. “So they’re not going to give us the intensity that we need for a street light.”

Council members opted to pay the additional $10,000 for functional street lights vs pretty lights and passed the ordinance as an emergency.

The Heart of Ohio Business Association will pay $5,000 of the cost, and the Knox County Foundation will kick in $120,725 in strategic planning funds.

Council members also waived the three readings and passed emergency legislation authorizing Wise to award the bid for street paving to Small’s Asphalt Paving.

The contract shall not exceed $265,000, which is the engineer’s estimate. Small’s bid was $241,149.15.

The paving consists of two parts: Phase Three of the Ohio Public Works Commission project on South Hartford ($139,266.65) and miscellaneous paving throughout the village ($101,882.50).

In other legislative action, council members gave a first reading to legislation re-establishing a Shade Tree Commission.

by Cheryl Splain August 6, 2024