Bluffton Diamond Sports is hoping Bluffton council will share half the costs of an improvement to one of the village park ball diamonds in 2021.
Council’s park and recreation committee, meeting on Sept. 30, was approached by the summer youth sports group to assist in the project.
The project would add roughly 100 ton of material on the playing field that faces County Line Road. The estimated total cost for the upgrade is between $10,000 and $12,000, according to Ben Stahl, council member.
Bluffton’s water usage decreased by 15.5 percent this year due to Bluffton University, Bluffton schools and businesses shut down due to covid-19.
David Steiner of the council utility committee appraised council of that fact on Monday.
The cost of water production allocated to Bluffton is $550,304 compared to last year’s cost of $549,355.
The Bluffton rate per 100 cubic foot of water will increase from $2.06 to $2.44 due to the decreased volume of water spread over approximately the same fixed costs of production.
There’s a new municipal parking lot in Bluffton and this week it gets its stripes.
Village-owned property north of the fire station on North Main Street was paved in the past month. It will soon have 24 parking spaces, Jesse Blackburn, village administrator, told council members on Monday.
Of those spaces at least four will be reserved for fire department use.
The village purchased two properties north of the station several years ago anticipating either expansion of its fire station or for use as a parking lot.
The board's complete agenda is attached at the bottom of this story -
Bluffton school board puts final touches on the start of the 2020-21 school year at its meeting on Monday. The agenda also includes a planned executive session to discuss employment of personnel.
Two resignation and several new classified employee hirings is on the agenda. Cheryl Morris and Leisa Stratton announced their resignations.
Taking no action, Bluffton council reviewed scheduling issues in its police department during Monday’s council meeting.
The situation, reported by the council personnel and finance committee, which met on Aug. 5, specifically concerns vacation time.
The department has challenges due to several events, including a pregnancy and two surgeries involving officers.
Combined with that, Police Chief Ryan Burkholder anticipates problems scheduling vacations due to the continuous full-time department work during the covid-10 period that began in March.
