By Linda Dillman
Staff Writer
Once the dust settles and all of Canal Winchester’s city offices have transitioned to the new municipal complex on East Waterloo Street, workers will be back at 36 S. High St. to convert the old municipal complex into a new substation for Fairfield County deputy sheriffs.
Housed currently in the basement of 10 N. High St., deputies will move after the renovation is complete following the March 21 approval by Canal Winchester City Council of waiving competitive bidding and agreeing to a contract with Ferguson Construction for no more than $130,000.
“The desire to convert 36 S. High St. into the new substation has been out there as long as the process with the McDorman building,” said Canal Winchester Contract Services Administrator Bill Sims. “I think it’s a great choice to make it available for that use and obviously a much better work environment.”
Sims said the former municipal building creates a presence in the community that is more prominent.
“We wanted to minimize the amount of work that had to be done and make it a secure location,” said Sims, “and fit properly with the number of people they have. It’s pretty much a bare bones remodel at this point and it will provide a better situation for folks who have to visit the substation.”
CW swimming pool
Council approved updating swimming pools rates for the summer season after a rocky year in 2021.
“A lot of this addresses some of the conditions we had last year,” said Canal Winchester Public Service Director Matt Peoples. “There were some behavior issues we had to deal with and some interference with the swim team. There were fights and quite a bit of unruly behavior we tracked back to the daily rates.”
Households are now broken down according to the number of individual family members. Before July 5, the individual membership rate is $99/resident and $119/non-resident. On July 6, the rate drops to $69/resident and $89/non-resident.
For a household of four, before July 5 the rate is $199/resident and $239/non-resident. For a household of six individuals, the pre July 5 rate is $239/residents and $279/non-residents.
Canal Winchester Finance Director Amanda Jackson said the definition of a household has changed and there was an increase in age for dependents up to 22.
“We’re trying to make a few changes to make it easier to verify if a family unit is a family unit,” said Jackson.
The daily admission rate is $5 for residents ages three to 59 and now $8 for non-residents. Ages 60 and older are $2 for residents and $3 for non-residents. There is no after 5 p.m. rate.
“We eliminated the discount after 5 p.m.,” said Peoples. “Most of our troubles were after 5 p.m. Before, we had some intermittent problems, but last year it was just horrible.”
Councilman Patrick Shea said the pool belongs to the city and is there for the benefit of residents. He felt it was a much safer situation when the pool was operated under a pass only policy.
“We had a lot of residents who said they don’t go to the pool because it is open (to non-residents),” said Councilwoman Jill Amos. “We heard if we went back to just a city pool, they would come back.”
Mayor Mike Ebert said the city is looking into hiring additional adult staff members at the pool to work throughout the day.
Other CW news
•Ebert also reported on the city’s annual Easter Egg Hunt, which is scheduled for April 16 at 10 a.m. in McGill Park.
“Where we have it is based on the stability of the ground on that day,” said Ebert. “It could change. If it does, we’ll put up signage.”
•After a review of three bids, Canal Winchester is moving ahead with the city’s 2022 street program after approving a nearly million dollar contract with Decker Construction.
“We opened the bids for this project on March 11 utilizing the new online program for bids which saved a lot of time for us and contractors,” said Sims. “We received several good bids and the lowest and best was Decker Construction. The prices came in well enough that we can do the Trine St. portion as well.”
The estimate was $1.02 million including the base bid and an alternate. Decker’s base bid and the alternate one bid totaled $990,197. Two other bids ranged from $1.01 million to nearly $1.16 million.
While the bids were under the estimate, Sims said asphalt costs are up about 25 percent across the board.
