At a glance:
¯ Marietta City Council’s Streets Committee reviewed a 2020 traffic signal removal study of three Marietta intersections on Thursday: ¯ The Franklin and Market streets’ intersection in the Fourth Ward. ¯ The Second and Scammel streets’ intersection in the Second Ward. ¯ The Acme and Phillips streets’ intersection in the First Ward.
¯ Marietta City Council is not expected to advance legislation on the signal removals on Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m. but may advance legislation for removal of the red-yellow-green traffic signal in the Fourth Ward by mid-March.
Engineering conclusions of a 2020 traffic signal removal study resulted in a call for further discussion about resident and local business impacts Thursday in Marietta City Council.
jpatterson@mariettatimes.com
Photos by Janelle Patterson
From left, Marietta City Councilman Geoff Schenkel listens to the observations of Tanner Huffman and Adam Murphy concerning the securing of the blighted property at 115 Gilman Ave. on Tuesday.
Instead of generations of physicians’ history dating back to Marietta’s 1788 settlers, the city’s labor crews were greeted Tuesday with drug paraphernalia elevated within arm’s reach of a city sidewalk in view of Harmar Elementary School on Gilman Avenue.
With gloves on and a crumpled, emptied water bottle in his left hand, Adam Murphy collected first the hypodermic needle to the left of the front stoop, at hip height.
jpatterson@mariettatimes.com
An entrepreneurial endeavor at the Marietta Harbor and the closure of a community building on Harmar Hill were up for committee discussion in Marietta City Council on Monday.
Harbor dock space
Matthew Livengood, representing himself as a private entity rather than as county auditor, offered a preliminary pitch to host a pontoon-rental business off of the city docks beneath the Historic Harmar Bridge.
Livengood offered for consideration a proposed use of some of the city harbor’s counter space in its concession stand and asked for storage space alongside dock space for the boats.
City Law Director Paul Bertram guided additional discussion needed to include a formal bidding process for lease space at the harbor and explained the timeframe plausible for a Memorial Day weekend opening if Livengood were the successful bidder.
jpatterson@mariettatimes.com
Marietta City Council concluded 2020’s work Wednesday with a special business meeting via teleconference, wrapping up final finance needs and ratifying the next three years of unionized fire protection for the city.
Ordinances 158 and 159 were introduced before a full legislative body, the first a financial exercise used to maintain compliance with state expectations to balance the books at the close of any given year and the second to ratify the next three years of a contract with the International Association of Fire Fighters.
Ordinance 158 backed out funds, called unappropration, to prevent being over appropriated for projects and expenditures that did not take place in 2020 which would flag an issue in annual auditing.