By GLEN WERLING
Members of the Ossian Town Council Monday night agreed to join four other incorporated Wells County communities — Bluffton, Uniondale, Poneto and Vera Cruz — in participating in a study for community master planning.
The study, to be performed by Abonmarche Consultants of Goshen.
“The proposal is for a single engineering firm to do all of the plans so there is cohesiveness of all of the plans,” Wells County Economic Development Executive Director Chad Kline said.
The plans are intended to be a deeper dive beyond the Wells County Area Plan Commission’s Comprehensive Plan for the county.
“What does Ossian want? Where does it want to grow? How does it want to grow?” Kline asked. “As you start to identify where your growth areas are and kind of projects you want to do, this planning will help guide infrastructure investments,” he added.
It can also be used to set the town’s growth timeline.
“When’s the last time you had a master plan for the town?” Kline asked. “This really is going to dive into community, community involvement in each of the (incorporated communities) around the county,” Kline said.
There will be a lot of data that Ossian can harvest from the study to determine what the town wants to do and what it wants to be as well as how it can achieve those goals.
Markle is participating in a similar master plan, but with Huntington County through Region 3A, and Zanesville has already started its own master planning with Abonmarche. That’s why Kline noted that Abonmarche was picked for the community master plan since it had already started with Zanesville, it gave the county a break on the master planning for the other communities.
Kline observed that Abonmarche is charging $90,000 for the planning. He asked Ossian to contribute an amount of $25,000. He hoped that he could actually bring the amount down to $20,000 if he is successful in getting some grants to offset the cost of the study.
Council president Josh Barkley asked how much Bluffton was contributing.
Kline replied he would be asking Bluffton to put up $35,000.
Council member Dennis Ealing asked why Ossian, which he noted was three times smaller than Bluffton, was being asked to put up such a large sum. “They’re three times as big as us, so they should pay three times more,” Ealing said.
“They’re not three times bigger than you,” Kline said.
“They’re close,” replied council member Brad Pursley.
Kline said he will certainly ask for more.
He added that Zanesville’s study was $30,000 but it is a bit more involved with more community meetings. He also said that if Ossian were to do the study by itself, it would be paying $60,000.
“We’re a small community. We don’t want to give all of our money away,” Pursley said.
Kline said he understood but added, “This is your plan. This is not a county plan.”
Kemper moved to pursue the services of Abonmarche for a master plan in an amount not to exceed $25,000.
In other business, the council members approved of compliance of statement of benefits for tax abatement for H&N Properties (Berne Apparel), Perma Column, Peña’s Mechanical Contractors, Trusted Supply Chain Partners, Perma Column, TI Automotive, Linder Oil, and Rethceif.
Only TI Automotive did not in 2021 show on its form that it had employed the number of people it had said it would to gain the tax abatement.
Kline explained that was hardly through any fault of TI, however, as it was stung by the supply chain issues that had impacted so much of the auto industry. Kline pointed out in past years, during the period of abatement, TI had actually exceeded the number of employees it claimed it would add to its payroll.
The council members also approved of making two payments to API Construction Corp. of LaOtto. The first, for $272,373.52, was for Greenwood Trail in the Sandalwood housing addition. The second payment was for $17,231.46 for various street projects around town.
The council members also accepted a deed of dedication of public right-of-way for the small sliver of property acquired by the town to accommodate the southeastern wing wall for the new culvert over the William Smith Drain on Woodcreek Drive.
The council members also approved a fireworks permit for Ossian Health & Rehabilitation so that the facility may have an aerial fireworks display at its Freedom Fest June 23.
Because Freedom Fest is being held outside of the town’s permitted time period for fireworks displays surrounding the Independence Day holiday, the facility needed to get permission for an exception to the town ordinance.
The council also signed an easement improvement agreement with Michael and Rachel Sponseller, 302 Beechwood Drive. The Sponsellers are hoping to replace their privacy fence in a town easement. The agreement is an understanding with the Sponsellers that if the town ever needs access to the easement, the fence may be removed by the town with no repercussions to the town and the cost of the removal to be paid by the Sponsellers.
Martin also informed the council members that AEP will be replacing the street lights with new, more directional LED lighting fixtures.
Chichester informed the council that AEP had recently made the change to one of the street lights in front of his house and he really liked it. The light is more directional and brighter without being as harsh.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, the council heard from rural Ossian resident Marielle Witte who was concerned about proposals for an Ind. 1 bypass around Ossian. She was most concerned about how such a bypass will impact landowners on the east side of Ossian.
Representing Ossian Revitalization, Larry Heckber also asked about the progress toward extending LaFever Street to Archbold Wilson Memorial Park. Martin said she hadn’t forgotten about it but there are issues that need to be addressed first.
glenw@news-banner.com
