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 Members of the Wapakoneta Middle School Student Council pose for photo outside the classroom earlier this year. To date, the group has raised nearly $2,300 in which they have donated to various local and area organizations throughout the 2009-2010 school year. Photo provided By KRISTA HAYES
Staff Writer
With the end of the school year nearing, Wapakoneta Middle School Student Council members are hoping to end their term on a positive note.
During the school year, the school government raised nearly $2,300 for various local and area organizations.
“Each year, we try and raise as much money as we can for various clubs and organizations that we vote on and decide to help support at the beginning of the school year,” Wapakoneta Middle School Student Council President Neal Maxson said.
Elected a Student Council representative of his homeroom, Maxson, a seventh-grade student, said this is his second year serving on the council. This year as president, his main responsibility is to set forth an agenda and preside over the group’s monthly meetings which are held the first and third Thursday of each month.
“I joined the Student Council because I was looking for a new activity to do and thought it’d be challenging experience,” Maxson said. “Politics have always been one of the things to stick out in my head and when I grow up, I want to be a lawyer.
“Overall, as president I think I have done a pretty good job,” he said. “Being president is a lot harder than what I thought it would be since I have to make the agendas, run the meetings, and keep the advisers in the loop. I have the whole weight of the council on my shoulders, and at times it can get frustrating, but I would recommend it to all the kids coming to the middle school next year because it’s a fun activity to be involved in.”
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Wednesday, 18 March 2009 |
By KAREN CAMPBELL
Assistant Managing Editor
Fifteen bridges are scheduled to be replaced in 2009.
Structures to be replaced are to include the use of county-manufactured precast concrete beams, three-sided concrete boxes and large diameter concrete pipes.
Auglaize County Engineer’s Office personnel plan to use more than 450 cubic yards of concrete to cast the various bridge and culvert sections at the county garage during the winter in preparation of the replacement schedule.
Total cost is estimated at $471,155, but Auglaize County Engineer Doug Reinhart said the true impact on the budget is $238,185 — the cost of materials.
“That’s what we will truly have to budget to replace the 15 structures,” Reinhart said. “We’re so cost effective we’ll be able to do all 15 with our forces.
“This is a very aggressive program,” he said. “We’ll be pouring concrete well into April and starting the first bridge by the end of the month.”
An additional bridge project on Harrison Street in Wapakoneta has been contracted to Brumbaugh Construction for $1.98 million. More than $1.6 million for the project is expected to come from a Federal Gas Tax Grant with the balance to be paid by the city of Wapakoneta for street improvements through an Issue 1 grant and General Fund money.
The county bridge program began in 1997 and with the completion of all scheduled rehabilitation projects this year, 60 bridges will have been done by county crews.
Headapohl Road bridge, scheduled for rehabilitation, is the first built with county beams in 1967.
“After 42 years, we are just rehabilitating the walls and widening the deck,” Reinhart said.
He said estimates are that it costs the county $135 a foot to construct the bridges compared to an estimate of $650 in material costs alone from a company two years ago.
“There’s no particular order the bridges will be done in at this point,” Reinhart told Auglaize County Commissioners as he presented the list to them Tuesday afternoon.
He said he anticipates a schedule to be determined within a month.
All the affected utility companies are being contacted, with only a couple easements expected. Utilities may dictate the schedule for getting work completed.
“None of the bridges are on roads about to be resurfaced, so that won’t move them up in the program,” Reinhart said.
He said if County Road 33A is awarded any stimulus funding, for which he applied for repaving, they would check affected bridges there and possibly make any changes as required to ensure that they wouldn’t be digging up the new pavement for 15 years.
“Fortunately, all the bridges we have on this year’s program are being rehabilitated,” Reinhart said. “If they had to be fully replaced, we couldn’t do it.”
He said under current law, they are required to add 38 percent for overhead labor and benefit costs, 15 percent for materials, and pay Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) equipment rates.
Based on 2003 limits, which do not factor in inflation, county bridge crews cannot complete jobs estimated at more than $100,000.
Reinhart said inflation for bridge and road construction has increased 70 percent since 2003. Making a job that would have cost $100,000 to complete in 2003 cost $170,000 now.
In a meeting next week between the Ohio County Engineers Association and the contractors association, engineers plan to ask for a change to the law, that the current project limit be set at that inflated rate and that inflation be built in every year after.
“We hope we can negotiate something out,” Reinhart said. “We haven’t had to post load restrictions for 12 years. In 1984 when I started, there were 46 posted bridges. Our county program has saved the county a lot of money and kept roads safe. There are a lot of bigger structures out there that may have to have load restrictions if we can’t do this ourselves.”
He anticipated having to post load restrictions on National Road within two years because the county can’t rehabilitate it for less than $103,000 and can only make beams 33 feet, not the 38 required.
Commissioner John Bergman said load restrictions on any of the county’s 360 bridges, defined as those with 10-feet spans and wider, is a concern when emergency responders may need to get to a location quickly.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 March 2009 )
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