By Megan Alley
Sun Staff

The village of Amelia council met on July 18 to handle a variety of business matters.

– Two new part-time police officers were sworn in.

– Bridgeway Baptist Church will host an outdoor movie screening on Aug. 12 at Spencer Shank Memorial Park. The evening will start at 8 p.m., and “Toy Story 3” will be shown.

– The council is continuing to take steps to demolish the “blighted” property at 36 Chapel Road, according to Mayor Todd Hart.

– Village officials plan to submit a grant proposal to the Ohio Public Works Commission for $480,000 for a roadway repairs project on Amelia Park and Wooden Ridge Drives.

– The council approved a $5,000 retroactive expenditure for recent street striping work.

“They probably did at least half the town,” Hart said. “I thought it was a good price.”

For the second phase of work, village officials plan to borrow a street striping machine from the village of Newtown and utilize one of their streets and maintenance workers in exchange for one of Amelia’s public works employees.

“That’s not etched in stone yet, but hopefully that’s how that will work,” Hart said.

– Due to an estimated cost of $156,384, the council decided not to move ahead with an early census count.

The decision stems back to the special election on May 2, when Amelia voters adopted a municipal charter and made Amelia a charter village.

This was a pertinent decision, because data from the 2010 census shows that Amelia is on the cusp of transforming from a village to a city, which is defined in Ohio as a municipality with more than 5,000 residents. Amelia had 4,801 residents at the 2010 census.

Village officials had hoped to get an official count earlier than the 2020 census, thus expediting Amelia becoming a charter city, but the cost proved to be prohibitive.

– The council approved spending $5,800 to paint the back building and garage, as well as adding larger gutters to the garage, of the village’s administration offices campus, located at 119 W. Main St.

– The village will host its Police Night Out event on Aug. 1 from 5 to 8 p.m. at Spencer Shank Memorial Park.