While students were off cam pus doing internships, odd jobs and being couch potatoes, Ath ens City Council was still in ses sion. Most of the time.
Before the August recess, the city’s legislative body focused on technological advances, creating new public parks and electrical aggregation.
When OU’s spring session was winding down, Tom Reid, presi dent and founder of Reid Con sulting Group LLC, presented a report to council on the city’s information technology systems. Reid’s main objectives were to test Athens’ electrical grid and make sure there are enough backup generators and storage drives to back up government data.
City Auditor Kathy Hecht said Reid did a good job prioritizing improvements the city could make. Jeff Risner, D-3rd Ward, agreed and said electricity should be a top priority because it pow ers the water purification system.
But Chris Fahl, D-4th Ward, disagreed and said the improve ments are costly and should be prioritized for the next budget.
After that, in May, council passed a resolution joining the statewide ban on well injections. The ban was sought to — in the long run — protect local envi ronments from waste created by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
According to the Ohio De partment of Natural Resources, surrounding states dumped 14 million barrels of fracking waste into Ohio’s 178 injection wells. An injection well is an old well that is converted into a vertical pipe for drilling minerals, oil and natural gas.
The statewide ban of injection wells will halt all dumping un til some sort of regulation is put into place.
“We are becoming a dumping ground,” Fahl said. “It reminds me of what happens to Third World countries. The people there end up paying the long-term legacy prices for all this in dustrial, profit-making activity that’s going on in other places.”
Council also decided to pur chase 15 acres of land in Farhills from the Dowler family. Coupled with a $15,000 donation from the family, the city will pay about $25,000 for the land.
At this point, the land is unde veloped and there is a deed re striction that must be taken into account when making it accessi ble to the public. That’s because the Dowler family has required that the land be used only for recreational purposes as a wild life and woodland preserve.
Kent Butler, D-1st Ward said, “with proper planning, it will be OK to use this a as a trail facility.”
The park would be named the John and Aveline Dowler Park upon completion.
During the last meeting be fore the August recess, council members made one last crucial decision: They put electrical ag gregation on the ballot for the November election.
Homeowners currently have the ability to choose their own gas and electricity providers or deregulated companies; but lo cal governments are now buying natural gas and electricity — a process called aggregation.
Athens County is trying to aggregate electricity to provide cheaper rates for homeowners.
“It will be a step towards gain ing green energy credit, sim ply more government grants,” said Steve Patterson, D-at large. “Electric aggregation is going to be the new normal.”
When council returns it will continue to tackle big projects with University Estates, the new bike path spur off Columbus Road and more infrastructure updates and repairs.
