Plans for rec center making progress
MINSTER — Minster village council passed a motion to enter into a joint-use agreement with the Grand Lake Health/Premier Health YMCA as they aim to build a sports recreation complex at the South Branch in Minster.
The new complex would extend out to the east over to Walnut Street.
Lesia Arnett, chairperson of the Y’s board of directors, and Christine Purdy, the past chair of the Y, provided councilors with a progress update of how the project began and how it’s going.
Last December, the YMCA received a $750,000 state capital improvement grant from the state to help fund the complex.
Arnett said they reached out to local schools including New Bremen, New Knoxville, Minster, Fort Loramie,
St. Marys and Marion Local to see what their needs were.
“What is the need? What are they lacking? Obviously gym space, we’ve heard that before,” said Arnett. Through this, Arnett said they learned that three courts are needed for the gymnasium, with one being an all-turf field to be used for soccer and other sports. Other needs included batting cages and possibly a golf simulator and a track. “Then we defined the contractors we would put the bid out for,” said Arnett.
She said they reached out to Ferguson Construction and H.A. Dorsten, who both have worked with YMCAs, to get a design bid built so they had a better idea of the cost.
W hile the $750,000 is a good start, Y officials realized that wouldn’t be enough to build a full addition.
“We’re in the middle of COVID so a lot of those costs are very, extremely high right now as you guys work with every day. We defined
the cost, reached back out to the schools again and letting them know what our goal was and making sure the need was still there before we figure out how we’re going to raise the funds,” said Arnett. “With that, we have reached out to a couple of local businesses, just letting them know what was going on and then with Auglaize County and Mercer County receiving funds, we reached out to them.”
Committee members met with commissioners from both Auglaize and Mercer counties to see what kind of funding they could get as Auglaize was receiving around $8.9 million in funding and Mercer around $8 million.
“They were totally on board with our project so then we had to put our ask letter in because they were already starting to receive ask letters. We’ve submitted our ask letters to Auglaize County; we’re working with one for Mercer County now.”
The counties allocate funding to its townships and Arnett said she’s working closely with Prosecuting Attorney Ed Pierce who is overseeing the townships and how they’re going to allocate the funds.
“He’s going to help me in defining that ask letter to each township to also contribute to this rec complex,” she said.
Once it’s clear how much money they will receive from the different townships, they will turn to the community as well.
“We’re working very closely with a couple other smaller organizations regarding the rec complex and how that would work, offering it to the community because of the state funding we received, it has to be available to the community to use for 15 years,” Arnett said.
To use the complex, you will not need to be a member of the Y.
The goal is to be able to hold tournaments and practices for organizations in the area.
“Basically anything the schools can’t handle and how they overflow. They definitely said there’s a need for this type of complex,” Purdy said. “The goal would be to host club volleyball so we wouldn’t have to run out of the area so often and bring that economic development to the restaurants in the area, too.”
In addition to the $750,000 grant, Purdy said the Y has another $250,000 to add, bringing the total so far to $1 million.
“It certainly is needed, no doubt. I think it’s a great idea,” said Councilor Tom Herkenhoff.
In other business:
• Council discussed
and motioned to enter into an agreement with CDM Smith for Total Dissolved Solids Phase I design at the Minster water and wastewater facilities. Village Administrator Don Harrod said that CDM Smith has developed a list of solutions for the eliminating the dissolved solids from the village’s reject water.
• Council discussed
and motioned to re-appoint Joel Wuebker to the distribution committee of the Minster Community Fund for a three-year term beginning Jan. 1, 2022.
• Council approved
11 invoices over $3,000.
• Council discussed
and motioned to request the $5 permissive license fees from Auglaize County.
• Harrod said that
leaf pickup is continuing in the village on a daily basis, weather permitting. Residents are asked to refrain from putting sticks and brush in with the leaves as it causes a problem with the collection chute.
• Harrod informed
council that electrical crews changed a service last weekend at Machine Concepts in preparation for setting a steel pole at Progress Tool.
It’s anticipated that crews from Parks Drilling and Vaughn Electric will be in the village within the next couple weeks to begin setting the pole.
• Harrod said that
crews from the public works department and the wastewater/water treatment plant continue to work on fire hydrant testing and that the project should be wrapped up within the next week.