Vernon council passes two bond ordinances

The Vernon Township Council passed two bond ordinances on Monday night, allotting more than $1.55 million in bonds or notes for improvements throughout the township.

Originally one ordinance, the $692,750 bond for replacing the turf at the Maple Grange Park was separated from the ordinance calling for a $856,777 bond for the purchase of a street sweeper, leaf vacuum, two dump truck bodies, along with sanders and shop equipment for the Department of Public works, a fingerprinting machine and a generator, as well as improvement of various township streets and the purchase of a dump truck.

The Maple Grange ordinance was passed 4-0 with Councilwoman Sandra Ooms abstaining, while the other ordinance passed unanimously.

Mayor Harry Shortway said the replacing the turf fields at Maple Grange Park would cost the average Vernon Township taxpayer about $9 per year.

In a May 9 memo, Vernon Township Engineer Corey Stoner said the turf fields at Maple Grange Park had exceeded their life and needed to be replaced.

The fields were closed on July 1 and while Stoner, in a July 15 memo to Shortway, said testimony from Thomas Knutelsky of Harold Pellow & Associates, never deemed the fields “unsafe”, he did not object to the fields being described in that fashion.

Stoner’s memo said the field’s “turf blades have degraded and are not allowing the field to function as it was originally designed to function”.

Stoner estimated it would cost about $785,000 to replace both turf fields.<br/>The fields were installed in 2005.