The following text is a report made by Mayor Dave Retterer to the Ada Village Council on Tuesday, January 18, minus comments made to those in attendance including Fiscal Officer Patty Navin, Police Chief Michael Harnishfeger, (remotely) Village Administrator Jamie Hall and Legal Council Jane Napier. Also in remote attendance were the Ada Herald and Kenton Times.
COUNCIL
Routine issues in the Village continue to be handled well. Ada is fortunate to have had active, deliberative, engaged, intelligent and dedicated councilors for many years and that has much to do with the current state of the village. This allows Ada to be prepared for future needs, opportunities and emergencies.
FISCAL STATUS
A successful reorganization of the accounting system in 2020 led to additional progress in 2021. Council has planned and budgeted to acquire one software package that will support utility billing, payroll, payables and receivables as well as other related activities. Currently there are at least two software packages to accomplish this and they don’t communicate with each other.
PROJECTS
The only major project in the village in 2021 was the reconstruction of West Lincoln Avenue. This project completes the reconstruction of all of Lincoln Avenue in the past 10 years. In addition, during 2021 quite a bit of work was done to obtain substantial funding for the Water Plant Improvement Project. That project is planned for completion in 2022 and some of that work has already been done.
EMPLOYEES
Our greatest asset is the employee base. Village Council and the administrative individuals focus on making it possible for our employees to succeed and to enjoy their work. This means we need good facilities, good equipment, well maintained finances and well trained people. I believe the village has done a good job of this and that we are getting better at it. In 2021, our Public Works Superintendent, Wes Davis, passed away and our Public Works team continued to perform their duties well through the applications and interviews. An offer made to Joe Hefner, one of our team who worked under Wes was hired to fill the position. I am very proud of our team and of Joe for their work and, as Joe likes to remark about, the “Good Culture” of our Public Works team.
Our police department continues to protect the people and their property well but we have had quite a few officers move on to other opportunities. The chief and I have discussed this at length. I believe it may well be improving.
David A. Retterer
Mayor of Ada, Ohio
