Meladi Brewer | Correspondent
VERSAILLES – The Versailles Village Council met Wednesday to discuss Town Hall and through trucking.
In the Finance and Audit Committee meeting that was held before the regular Council meeting, Fiscal Officer Kathy Ording announced the Village no longer has to pay off the Ambulance bond.
“We are paying off that loan early, and that loan was being paid through the EMS fund. It will be gone going into 2024,” Ording said.
Village Administrator Mike Busse advised the council that the Village Phone Systems were looked at, and they received quotes for a replacement system. It was the recommendation that the village contract with NuWave Technology for a replacement phone system at a cost of $19,807. Doss, the current phone company, gave a quote of $28,137.50, and Busse advised it would be wise to move onto the newer models.
The new system would alleviate the issues The Village has had with the systems where they sometimes work and sometimes don’t. They would also help remove the voicemail conflict.
“Our biggest issue we have today with the voicemail system is the capacity is shared between all the users, so it fills up pretty quick,” Busse said.
For example, Assistant Village Administrator Kyle Francis went on vacation the past week, as no one could receive a voicemail until he cleared all his missed calls out of the system. The new one will operate over the Village Network.
“One concern we used to have is if there was some sort of break in the line, then our phone system couldn’t communicate with this building,” Busse said.
With the new system, if it were to fail, it will fail over to a designated phone system and calls will still get through.
“The police department could fail over to Chief Bolin’s phone, or our coms could fail over to Francis’s phone. It alleviates all that concern,” Busse said.
The council agreed to the costs before moving on to talk about construction, as a pre-construction walk-through with Centerpoint was completed.
Busse said they will be completing their last bare steel upgrade in the Village this summer. The work area stretched from East Wood, East Ward, Park Blvd., and Olive Street.
“This will be the last and final project with the gas line upgrades in town, so that means all of our gas lines are upgraded to medium pressure and they’re all tested and safe,” Busse said.
Busse said they were already working on locating utilities and plan to begin the actual gas line installation soon. Towards the end of the week, the workers should start sawing holes in the street and doing hard locating of all the utilities.
“The idea is to not get into other utilities, as they start to put in new,” Busse said.
Busse advised they were hoping they would have been done last year, but said the company “thought it was too big of a bite to get it all done” with all the other projects they had to do as well. The council agrees that the company doing the project is doing a great job at locating the utilities and resolving conflict.
“I will say they did a really good job at taking care of where they dig up in your yard, and they fixed a lot of driveways, and curbs, and stuff. They do a really nice job kind of going above and beyond, so I really give the credit there too,” Mayor Jeff Subler said.
The Street & Safety Committee met on Monday, June 26, at 7:30 p.m., to discuss a request for a proposed handicap parking space within the current no parking area on the south side of Greenlawn Avenue. Busse advised the council the committee facilitated much discussion with a property owner concerning the following topics:
- A proposed handicap parking space in the no parking zone of Greenlawn Avenue
- The speed limit and speed limit enforcement on Greenlawn Avenue
- Truck traffic and enforcement on Greenlawn Avenue
- Truck traffic and enforcement on Brandon Street north of Morgan Street.
The committee recommended to council that there would be a traffic study of Greenlawn Avenue between N. center Street and N. West Street, the recommendation to Council to draft legislation limiting truck traffic on Greenlawn Avenue between N. Center Street and N. West Street, and there would be legislation drafted to limit truck traffic on Brandon Street north of Morgan Street.
“Are there legitimate reasons to do limitations” Kent Paulus said, “or are we trying to appease one person?”
Paulus said that just because one person brings up an issue, there isn’t a reason to start limiting everyone else. Todd Dammeyer, who was a part of the Street & Safety meeting, advised the issue is if the gentleman didn’t park on his own property, he is afraid of the speech at which he crosses the street and getting run over.
“He brought up a really good idea of a possible resolution of slowing traffic down by putting in a stop sign,” Dammeyer said.
The village currently has a stop sign every two blocks within town, so the idea is not too far fetched. Regardless of what a future decision is, the council agreed to do a traffic study on the area.
“The traffic study is going to look into the stop sign possibilities and going to identify the width of the street, how much traffic is going up and down, and depending on the counter used possibly the speed,” Busse said.
He advised that the study could also show that a stop sign is not warranted in the area as well. The council also agreed to relook at the ordinances, as the signs could be confusing as to what truck they are referring to. It will help officers enforce the rules, as there would be no confusion if a truck or two axle vehicle is allowed to drive through the area. There will be a public hearing for the proposed 2024 Tax Budget for July 12 at 6:45 p.m. before the regular Council meeting. The next Versailles Council meeting will take place Wednesday, July 12 at 7 p.m., in EMS Building, 320 Baker Road, Versailles.
