After a long time in the development phase we are now ready to begin more up to date communicating with the Village residents through our web page.  I will update residents on a periodic basis regarding council and other issues as I see the need.

Last Thursday was our last weeknight council for the year.  The remaining meeting will take place on the second Saturday of the month at 10:00am.  Our next meeting is October 8^th.

The September meeting was extremely short with only one legislative item on for third reading.  This legislation was regarding the Tree Ordinance that has been in discussion for several months.  The ordinance was initially brought forward as a result of many conversations over the years regarding dead and dying trees that are deemed a health or safety risk for residents, visitors and property on the Island.  At the direction of council, the Solicitor was asked to draft the legislation.  Many communities have similar laws in place for the same purposes.  At the request of the Landowners association, our Village Administrator, Scott Stevenson, attended an Association meeting to discuss some of their concerns regarding the legislation as written.  From that meeting, Scott requested some changes be made to the ordinance to address the concerns brought up at the meeting.  These changes were made and the Legislation went on to complete its second and third reading at the August and September regular council meetings.  Council was in receipt of another series of recommended changes  to the ordinance, but felt that the ordinance was acceptable as written and will be closely monitoring the implementation of the new law to ensure it is enacted as it was designed. 

As written. The new law enables the Village Administrator to notify property owners when tree dangers exist on their property and gives them ample time to have the dangers addressed.  In the event they are not addressed, the Administrator has the ability to take the necessary steps to rectify the dangers and charge property owners for the costs.

In other business, we have recently completed the Town Hall ADA compliant restroom project that includes elevator access to the basement from both the outside and inside levels of the town Hall and a brand new unisex restroom for the Town Hall visitors to use.  We are also very close to completing the new Downtown public restroom project located at the rear of the Dwelle house.  The project has been in design, funding and now construction phase for several years and could not have been done without the aid of Grants we received from the Ohio Capital Budget.

The Addison Street basketball court is in the process of receiving a facelift,  Last Fall we resurfaced the court, this year we fenced it, added a special court sealer finish, and are planning on restriping it as a multi-use court to serve both basketball and tennis fans.

We have preliminarily been awarded funding, from WSOS for a waterline project to bring water from the school, east across the Island and North terminating near Camp Patmos.  We are working to incorporate picking up some other homes to make the project cash flow.  While the details are still a bit preliminary, we should be getting a 1.2 million dollar loan for 30 years at 0% interest with a potential for 40% forgiveness.

We are also in the design and pricing phase of a waterline replacement project for Huntington Ln. north of lakeshore.