The Milford Center Village Council approved a resolution to find and fix a mysterious leak in the village water lines.
The resolution allows council member Chris Kise to spend up to $8,000 to find the leak in the village’s water pipes. Kise said he originally hired a company to spot the leak three times, but because the village’s pipes are made of plastic, the company couldn’t find it each time; the company’s technology would have been able to better detect leaks on the pipes through sound resonance, had they been made of metal.
“Somebody needs to grab the bull by the horns,” he said. “When you have a leak detection company that says it’s there but it’s not… in my world, I just move onto the next guy. You don’t stop looking for the leak.”
Kise said estimates show the village is losing around two million gallons of produced water a month based on information from Crabtree’s Water Hauling. If the village was to sell that water, it would net a potential $14,000 a month. Besides lost revenue, he said there would be problems over time if the leak isn’t found and fixed. He noted the soil will become oversaturated with the leaked water.
“Our soil in this town is gravelly and sandy underneath,” he said. “If it finds a clay pocket and goes against it, you’re going to have a giant sinkhole.”
Also discussed at the meeting was the rescheduling of the Bicentennial Park grand opening. Council member Terri Kean, who was serving as mayor for the evening, said the event, originally slated for July 22, has been moved to Sept. 23 due to a lack of communication from those involved.
“With all the people I had reached out to try and help us out with the event, I have gotten no response back,” Kean said. “I had no idea the sheriff’s department had planned on coming until he was here today.”
She also said the basketball court concrete job in Bicentennial Park is not complete, and the village will need to meet with the contractor. She said the village will have an update on the project sometime in the future. The village already paid a 50 percent deposit for the work.
Also at the meeting, residents voiced their concerns over how there are some vacant and occupied properties where village codes aren’t being enforced. This was mainly fueled by how some properties apparently have junk in their yards. They also voiced their concerns about some codes not being enforced, such as the village’s lawn-mowing regulations.
“The mayor is responsible for the enforcement of the codes,” resident Ron Payne said. “If the mayor isn’t doing it, then the mayor needs to be called onto the carpet. The law is the law.”
Residents said they wanted rules enforced to collect on delinquent properties taxes and wonder how sheriff’s department or land bank could acquire the properties.
Council member Jeff Parren said the process of dealing with these properties takes time and money to resolve those issues. As for enforcing ordinances, Kean said it is difficult because “no one wants to do it” and “everyone wants to do it their way.”