Public hearings were held during Tuesday's meeting of the Wayne City Council in regard to a request to re-zone an area just north of the city of Wayne.
Layne Mann submitted the request to separately parcel a house and outbuildings on a 2.5 acre lot north of Wayne. The area is currently zoned A-1 and with that zoning, a minimum lot size would be 10 acres. Mann would like the area re-zoned to A-2 to allow for the sale of a smaller lot.
Following the public hearing, the ordinance amending the zoning map was approved and the three readings waived.
A public hearing was also held for the final plat of Beckman Farm Subdivision, which is the same area that was re-zoned. The new plat will include the entire property and allow the owners the ability to sell off more lots in the future if they desire.
Resolution 2021-5 was approved. It will allow for the preliminary plat for Greenwood Addition. This will allow the city to take ownership of the west driveway in the cemetery. The driveway leads to the west water tower and is used on a regular basis by the city. The city will now have the ability to make improvements to the concrete driveway.
Brian Kesting, Information Technology Specialist, presented information on activities within his department.
He told the council his was "the only one man department" and said he has been employed with the city since March of 2003.
Kesting shared information on the work he does and said the city's internet is provided by the state, in partnership with Wayne State College.
In addition, he provided information to the council on the ransomware attack the city was involved with last year.
"We learned a lot from the incident and were able to recover nearly every piece of data. Since that time we have put into place stricter security to try to prevent this from happening again," Kesting said.
Future plans for the department include working with the utility departments in providing a mobile app and meter reading systems.
Kesting did ask council whether they planned to continue to broadcast meetings and said if this were the case, the council chambers in City Hall would require some updates.
Ordinance 2021-3 received second reading approval. It will amend the city code in regard to parking in the northeast quadrant of the city, more specifically in the Vintage Hill Third Addition and along 21st Street.
A resolution accepting the proposal and approving an engineering agreement between the city of Wayne and McLaury Engineering Inc. for the Fourth Street, Thorman Street and Cityside Drive project was approved.
The city staff is anticipating possible stimulus money from the federal government and note that it is a good idea to have projects 'ready to go' when the money becomes available. The paving of Fourth Street to Centennial Road has been preliminarily designed by McLaury.
Council members asked "what happens if we don't get funding?"
City Administrator Wes Blecke said that "that is a chance you take, but this is project that we probably want to see get done."
A second project that could possibly be 'shovel ready' would be 21st Street to Centennial Road and Centennial Road.
City Planner Joel Hansen told the council he had met with the Wayne County Commissioners and discussed the fact that the city anticipates future growth in this area "the project should be designed to city standards."
County commissioners suggested pay 25 percent of the engineering costs, but indicated they were willing to negotiate this number.
Continued discussion will take place between the city and county in coming weeks.
Council members also reviewed several more chapters in the city's employee personnel policy.
The Wayne City Council will next meet in regular session on Tuesday, Feb. 2 at 5:30 p.m. at the Wayne Community Activity Center.
