Dear People: Well, what a wild week it was! I will be in my office hours today at the Emporium, 12-1.
This past Monday I sent out a quick email to my whole Yellow Springs email list alerting you to the need to conserve water. Additionally, the "CodeRED" system called thousands of homes and cell phones of residents to give us the latest updates. (To find out more and/or register your cell phone or other number with code red, please click here and follow the instructions, or call the police department's non-emergency number, 7206, or email dispatch[at]yso[dot]com).
The great news? By Wednesday morning, the YS grid was just about 100% back online. Some individual structures that sustained damage to the connection points on the buildings were still off line late this week. As interim manager Weithofer explained, 56 buildings in town sustained minor damage, while 10 sustained major damage, according to reports from the MTFR. Without AMP-Ohio's assistance--which had 7 additional crews in town, helping with our recovery, we'd probably still be offline.
AND: During the power outage our village reduced our consumption of water by 70%,interim manager Weithofer reported at our Thursday night meeting. He also noted that, because of this reduced usage, there were no EPA violations during this time at our wastewater plant. We did not come close to using up all our water in the tower.
So, from all of us in village government: Well done, villagers! For more information about the inspiring and community oriented response to the storm, by both villagers and village staffers alike, please be sure to read the article by Diane Chiddester and Virgil Hervey in this week's Yellow Springs News. If you get a chance please consider sending a personal thank you to the village staffers who worked tirelessly to get things back up and running much faster than we thought possible on Monday.
Several of you asked some important questions about the storm and our response to it. Let me answer several of those questions now:
1) Generators at the water treatment / wastewater treatment plants? Interim manager John Weithofer reports that he is working with Joe Bates, our water treatment plant operator to install permanent pre-wiring for generators that will enable us to readily install and connect generators to our water plant during emergencies. He's also working with LJB, the engineering firm that is designing the planned updates and alterations to our wastewater treatment plant to put in place permanent prewiring for generators there.
2) Improved emergency notification system: As I mentioned, we have added CodeRED as the latest additional way for the police to contact villagers in case of emergency, and we encourage you to register alternative numbers with that service. (If you have a listed YS land-line number, you're already covered). Additionally, we always contact both WYSO and Dayton TV stations with the same information as soon as it is available.
What now? Dealing with debris. The Village asks that if you have large limbs that will need to be hauled off of your property, please follow the instructions at this link and then be patient--it will take some weeks for us to remove all the limbs and debris that need to be attended to.
Additionally, the above YS News article has advice from the health bureau about what to throw out, what to keep, from your fridge.
Ok! On to "normal" business:
1) Village manager search update: we received 46 applications for our village manager. 26 were from Ohio-based applicants; 20 from out of state. 39 applicants were male; 7 were female. We have narrowed the field down to 3 persons to interview, plus 2 alternates. The three interviewees have been contacted, and visits/interviews have been scheduled, and the alternates have been notified that they may be contacted for interviews. Remember to mark your calendars for the community forums that will be held on the evenings of October 7, October 13, October 20, 7 pm.
I have been very pleased with the work of our consultant Don Vermillion and with the help and advice of John Chambers, our village lawyer, and John Weithofer, our interim manager, during this process.
2) Planning Commission: We'll be having a joint Planning Comm mtg on Monday Sept. 29, Bryan Ctr., 7 pm with the Miami Valley Township Zoning Board discussing
Second, on Wed Oct. 1, 7 pm Bryan Ctr., we'll hold our regular Planning Comm meeting, be reviewing the Nonstop request re: the application to use the Davis St. house as office space and review the Comprehensive Plan.This past Monday I sent out a quick email to my whole Yellow Springs email list alerting you to the need to conserve water. Additionally, the "CodeRED" system called thousands of homes and cell phones of residents to give us the latest updates. (To find out more and/or register your cell phone or other number with code red, please click here and follow the instructions, or call the police department's non-emergency number, 7206, or email dispatch[at]yso[dot]com).
The great news? By Wednesday morning, the YS grid was just about 100% back online. Some individual structures that sustained damage to the connection points on the buildings were still off line late this week. As interim manager Weithofer explained, 56 buildings in town sustained minor damage, while 10 sustained major damage, according to reports from the MTFR. Without AMP-Ohio's assistance--which had 7 additional crews in town, helping with our recovery, we'd probably still be offline.
AND: During the power outage our village reduced our consumption of water by 70%,interim manager Weithofer reported at our Thursday night meeting. He also noted that, because of this reduced usage, there were no EPA violations during this time at our wastewater plant. We did not come close to using up all our water in the tower.
So, from all of us in village government: Well done, villagers! For more information about the inspiring and community oriented response to the storm, by both villagers and village staffers alike, please be sure to read the article by Diane Chiddester and Virgil Hervey in this week's Yellow Springs News. If you get a chance please consider sending a personal thank you to the village staffers who worked tirelessly to get things back up and running much faster than we thought possible on Monday.
Several of you asked some important questions about the storm and our response to it. Let me answer several of those questions now:
1) Generators at the water treatment / wastewater treatment plants? Interim manager John Weithofer reports that he is working with Joe Bates, our water treatment plant operator to install permanent pre-wiring for generators that will enable us to readily install and connect generators to our water plant during emergencies. He's also working with LJB, the engineering firm that is designing the planned updates and alterations to our wastewater treatment plant to put in place permanent prewiring for generators there.
2) Improved emergency notification system: As I mentioned, we have added CodeRED as the latest additional way for the police to contact villagers in case of emergency, and we encourage you to register alternative numbers with that service. (If you have a listed YS land-line number, you're already covered). Additionally, we always contact both WYSO and Dayton TV stations with the same information as soon as it is available.
What now? Dealing with debris. The Village asks that if you have large limbs that will need to be hauled off of your property, please follow the instructions at this link and then be patient--it will take some weeks for us to remove all the limbs and debris that need to be attended to.
Additionally, the above YS News article has advice from the health bureau about what to throw out, what to keep, from your fridge.
Ok! On to "normal" business:
1) Village manager search update: we received 46 applications for our village manager. 26 were from Ohio-based applicants; 20 from out of state. 39 applicants were male; 7 were female. We have narrowed the field down to 3 persons to interview, plus 2 alternates. The three interviewees have been contacted, and visits/interviews have been scheduled, and the alternates have been notified that they may be contacted for interviews. Remember to mark your calendars for the community forums that will be held on the evenings of October 7, October 13, October 20, 7 pm.
I have been very pleased with the work of our consultant Don Vermillion and with the help and advice of John Chambers, our village lawyer, and John Weithofer, our interim manager, during this process.
2) Planning Commission: We'll be having a joint Planning Comm mtg on Monday Sept. 29, Bryan Ctr., 7 pm with the Miami Valley Township Zoning Board discussing
- Role of development in the Township and the Village and zoning
- Annexation and Cooperative Economic Development Agreements (CEDA)
- Greenbelt
- Urban Services Area Map
Peace!
Lori
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