Hiawatha Pool seasonal closure begins

Hiawatha Pool closure begins

The Hiawatha Pool closure is underway to prepare for winter, with workers filtering water clean before draining it, and also storing furniture, Tom Hinkle Director of Public Works said.     

The Parks Department also made repairs to the broken playground equipment at Harmony Park. All the parts were installed on Wednesday and should be functioning properly now, he said.

“They replaced the two picnic tables that were vandalized over at Dan Emmett Park,” Hinkle said.

A new concrete apron was poured in front of the Parks maintenance and office facility. The dirt in front of the building wasn’t a good area to utilize, he said.

Concrete projects to begin Sept. 4

Smith Paving & Excavating of Newark will begin concrete-related projects starting on or about the week of Sept. 4, City Engineer Brian Ball said.

Center Street, Oak Street and East Vine Street will be included in those projects.

Ball said that between Gambier and High Street, Center Street drops down and goes back up at the intersection, with curb and gutters in bad condition.

“So we’re going to do some major reconstruction of that section of Center Street with Smith Paving and Excavating,” he said.

While work is taking place, on-street parking may be temporarily unavailable, requiring alternate arrangements.

Work will include:

Intersection improvements at Center St. and Oak St. and Center St. and E. Vine St. with sidewalk and curb ramp replacement at intersections; curb and gutter along portions of Center St, near intersections; curb and gutter replacement on E. Vine St. (south side, east of Center St.); and repaving will be done on Oak St. from Center St. to Boynton St.

At W. Vine St. (S. Elm St. to S. Harrison St.), curb and gutter will be installed on both sides, plus a bus pull off will be completed.

W. Ohio Ave. (S. Mulberry St. to S. Main St.) will have work done on the curb, sidewalk, and a curb ramp replacement on the south side.

Woodlake Trail (from Coshocton Ave. to Yauger Road) will have sidewalk and curb ramp replacement at intersections and curb and gutter repair.

Industrial park improvements start with drainage

Work will be done in the industrial park starting with drainage work.

“The ‘aquatic features’ will be removed from the roadway adjacent areas and then we'll obviously come back, mill and pave and resurface a large portion of the industrial park,” Ball said.

Work will move to Dixie Drive, a residential street, also.

The contractor will work on Plaza Drive north of Kroger to completely remove the road, curb and gutter and then they will reconstruct and road foundation. That won’t happen right away, Ball said.

Repairs made to crumbling road base

The Mount Vernon Street Department repaired a crumbled road on Wood Lake Trail. That section of road was broken up and its base had to be repaired.

Motorists will soon see new traffic lights at the intersections of Mansfield and Belmont, and Mansfield and Nash/Nuce roads. The contractor said they should be fully functional by the end of this week or early next week, said Hinkle.

The contract has all the parts for the first time in more than a year. The only factor left that could delay the project is the weather, he said.

Street and school zone painting was completed in time for the start of school, he said.

Air conditioning, leaky pipes replaced

The Public Buildings & Land Department replaced the air conditioning unit in that Parks Department building, Hinkle said.

“They're having to replace several old cast iron drain pipes in one of our rental units here on High Street,” he said.

Pipes for one of the units were leaking in the basement drain system and had to be replaced.

Parking stalls were painted on the bottom and middle levels of the parking garage at 5 N. Gay Street, he said. The top level will be completed this weekend. Prep work for the painting started Thursday with the striping scheduled on Saturday. Assigned parking for the Police Department and city staff will be designated on the top and middle levels.

“On the bottom level, there won't be any parking restrictions at all other than the hours of the parking garage. So the bottom level we're not planning on assigning any of those parking spots specifically to anybody,” Hinkle said.

The only restriction will be hours of operation.

Utilities Department to post assistant director’s position

The Utilities Department will create a job posting for the assistant director of the wastewater plant position, which became vacant at the beginning of this week, Utilities Director Aaron Reinhart said.

Starting on Oct. 1, the Utility Billing Office will have new hours. In just over a month its hours will be from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays. Hours will be 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.