Village looking at putting in designated truck route
NEW KNOXVILLE — New Knoxville Village Council held a first reading of an ordinance that would implement truck routes in the village.
Village Administrator Larry Kellermeyer said he had been approached by several residents recently about semi traffic on some of the back streets in the town.
Mayor Keith Leffel mentioned there had been more semi traffic recently on Walnut Street.
“There’s a business down here, or so-called business, that’s been buying surplus goods and semi traffic’s been going down Walnut to where the old township trustee building used to be,” he said. “… That’s where the complaints have been. Really those streets were never designed for semi traffic.”
Kellermeyer said he looked to New Bremen and Minster, which both have designated truck routes.
New Bremen has a limit of 10,000 pounds and Minster has a limit of 6,000 pounds.
“When you really start looking at it, that’s pretty light for a GVW (gross vehicle weight),” said Kellermeyer.
He said the village could restrict it to just semi traffic versus holding restrictions against garbage trucks or box trucks that make deliveries.
“We need to look further into it as what type of vehicle,” he said.
The routes that would be designated are: state Route 29, state Route 219, Botkins Angle Road, West Bremen Street, Industrial Drive, Buckeye Drive, South Street from state Route 29 to West Street and West Street from South Street to West Bremen Street.
Council discussed other criteria for the truck route ordinance because they didn’t want to single out semis that make one-time deliveries or other various instances like that.
Since it was the first reading on Wednesday, council will have two more readings to discuss and make amendments before it gets put to a vote.
Also Wednesday, Leffel said the village received its proclamation
from the state regarding its status in the 2020 Census.
He said that New Knoxville had a population of 946 in the most recent findings. He went back and looked at previous years and said that the village had a population of 891 in 2000, which dropped down to 879 in 2010.
In other business:
• Council passed an ordinance to increase appropriations in Fund 2153 ARPA – Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund from $0 to $45,357.21. Fiscal Officer Abby Homan said they will receive the same amount next year as well.
• Kellermeyer reported that all four welcome signs are up near the entrances of the village corporation limits.
• Kellermeyer said the village has switched out all the street lights that were turning purple. He said there was a manufactured defect on the lights they were replaced. If anyone spots more defected lights, be sure to let the village office know.
• Kellermeyer said that work was coming along on the water plant. He said that the village has been working with Wessler Engineering to address an issue with the prechlorination area. Kellermeyer said they had originally gotten a $100,000-plus bid to repair that. “We went and engaged with Wessler and it’s going to come in significantly under that,” he said. “It looks like we may be able to repair what we have; redo it almost exactly where it’s at. It was well worth getting engineers looking at this thing to really give us some different options.”
• Trick-or-treat is scheduled from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 28. Christmas in the Village is slated for Dec. 4.
• The next council meeting will be at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 10.
• Council entered executive session to discuss property and personnel. No action was taken.