Walbridge council discusses power outage, pool funding, feral cats among other items

        
Village council met the evening of March 5 in Walbridge, just after a power outage on Union St. affected some local residents.
       
That spurred Walbridge mayor, Ed Kolanko, to open up the meeting with a call for a potential resolution to urge Toledo Edison, or First Energy Company, to be more diligent in the inspection of the town’s electrical poles, some of which are leaning.
       
“It does seem like a lot of our poles are leaning, they look kind of sketchy, and we have relayed that to our representative at Toledo Edison,” he said. “Maybe council would consider doing a resolution to try to motivate some additional attention (and provide a stronger voice).”
       
“There was some strong wind tonight, but that was a pole that was leaning over. There are many more that I look at. I don't know how you guys look at it. But maybe this is a discussion … maybe it's a resolution encouraging Toledo Edison to come out and review all of our polls.”
 
Pool levy?
       
Council member Karen Baron said that the finance committee met on Feb. 25, where they discussed a potential levy for the pool because of the incurred costs each year and how they seem to go up every year. However, they decided that now is not a good time for that, although they may revisit it in the future.
       
Kolanko said the “timing is never good” and that ultimately something will need to be done.
       
“We’re going to have to have some heart-to-heart conversations that if we do want to continue the pool, what do we do?” he said. “Let’s continue those conversations and figure out a path forward.”
       
New playground equipment
       
Kolanko noted that, along with executive assistant Kelley Amstutz, he has been working on getting quotes for new playground equipment at Loop Park. He added that he doesn’t have any grant money for that, but he thought it would behoove the council to just get some quotes to see what it would look like.
       
“It’s strictly preliminary, so I'm working on that, and as soon as I get that kind of finalized, I'll give it to everyone,” he said. “If we want to modify it, look at it a different way, see what it’s going to cost, you know. But I thought it’s something we could consider.”
 
Feral cat issue
       
Kolanko followed that with word of a meeting with a representative of the Wood County Humane Society earlier that morning to discuss the feral cat problem in town.
       
“We all know that there is a feral cat problem, not only in Walbridge, but also across a lot of communities,” he said. “There's a couple properties that they have on their radar.”
       
Kolanko made mention of a couple really sad situations of older residents who have an overabundant amount of cats, and he said the feeding of cats has to stop. The humane society representatives said the village needs to take a more proactive approach to addressing blight.
       
“They stay in sheds, they stay in cars if they're just in the backyard, or just trash cans, or just trash,” Kolanko said. “We have to do what we can as a village to try to mitigate the number of cats.”
       
The village is still looking for a person to help with that code enforcement, but he said residents will see a stepped-up effort from council in the meantime.
       
“We’re going to do what we can and try to get some of the areas cleaned up so we can mitigate some of these problems. But it's going to have to be a community effort to try to reduce this. We're not the only (community with this problem). But we've got to do what we can to do to help.”
       
It was noted that a goal is to track, spay, neuter and re-release the cats, but that costs money.
       
“We're aware of it, obviously all of us are aware of it,” Kolanko said. “We're going to have to try to find some solutions and some education for the residents. They feel like they're doing the cats a favor by feeding them all the time, but it's not good. It's a work in progress.”
 
Summer lifeguards
       
In more fun news, the trio of Adryene Dudek, Lauren Tobias and Samuel Maassel were approved as lifeguards at the pool, on the condition of them obtaining certification.
 
Improved signage
       
Upcoming events were brought up, and council member Thomas Urbina also discussed the idea for good “Welcome to Walbridge” signage for people driving into town from I-280. He’s going to check into some quotes and bring it forward to the group.
 
Resurfacing project
       
The council also discussed the Walbridge Road resurfacing project. Part of that bidding out process includes advertising locally, which is currently in process, and once they have that completed, the process will move forward.
       
“Moving forward, we're going to do what's right for all the citizens regardless of Walbridge or Lake Township because that's what we should be doing,” Kolanko said.
       
Kolanko also said he has asked for some quotes for Blair Drive and the 100 block of Breckman and Raymond. He also said they should know more about the Allen St. project around the first part of May.
 
Park Wifi
       
Also of note, Kolanko said that he has some quotes from Spectrum on possibly putting WiFi at Railway and Loop parks.
       
“We’re making some financial determinations on that stuff and hammering out some of those details before I kind give them to you guys for further review,” he said. “We have to get some lines run to the parks and they want a three-year agreement, so we’re trying to do our due diligence before turning it over.”