Tipp City Council approves substation equipment purchases, public-defender contract and $150,000 Uptown seed funding

TIPP CITY, Ohio — Tipp City Council on Aug. 19 approved a package of resolutions to buy major electrical equipment for Substation No. 4, authorized an annual contract with the Miami County Public Defender's Office and approved a $150,000 transfer to the Community Improvement Corporation (CIC) to seed a revolving loan program and pay related professional services.

City staff told council the engineering and design for Substation No. 4 are complete and the resolutions on the agenda would buy key components. —The city has recently completed the engineering, and design, for Substation Number 4 here on the West Side of town,— Mack said in presenting the measures, asking council to approve the purchases.

Why it matters: the purchases are intended to equip a new substation that staff said is necessary for local electric-service reliability. Council considered separate resolutions authorizing contracts with vendors for structures and switches, circuit breakers, a circuit switcher, a power transformer, switchgear, relay and control panels, and voltage regulators.

What the council approved: the meeting record lists the following contract approvals as individual resolutions (amounts and vendor names as stated in the meeting): TAB and Associates (structures, processing and switches) — $724,760 (Resolution 30-24); Amexter Inc. (vacuum circuit breakers) — $327,697.65 as read in the transcript (Resolution 31-24); Robert S. Hawley Company (circuit switcher) — $199,960 (Resolution 32-24); Virginia Transformer Corp. (power transformer) — $1,048,969 (Resolution 33-24); Myers Control Power (indoor 15 kV switchgear) — $766,475 (Resolution 34-24); SEL (relay and control panels) — $200,647 (Resolution 35-24); and Peak Electric (voltage regulators) — $471,012 (Resolution 36-24). All these resolutions were opened for public hearing, saw no public comment, and were approved by roll call.

On the public-defender contract, staff described the item as the annual agreement with the Miami County Public Defender's Office to provide indigent-defense services. —This is an annual contract, with no price increase from the contract we had in place last year,— staff said. The contract amount discussed in the meeting record was described in relation to last year's caseload (the transcript references $4,884.88 as the unit of calculation), and council voted to approve the contract (Resolution 37-24).

Council also approved a transfer of $150,000 to the Community Improvement Corporation of Tipp City to support Uptown redevelopment (Resolution 38-24). Staff said $100,000 of the transfer will seed a revolving loan fund for local businesses and $50,000 will pay professional services related to the Uptown redevelopment contract; staff described the program as modeled on a neighboring city's program and said applications will be reviewed by the CIC.

On financing and next steps: staff presented an ordinance for first reading that would authorize issuance and sale of notes with a maximum principal stated in the meeting as $405,100,000 to allow financing to acquire roughly 12.15 acres near West Main Street and South Tippecanoe Drive and support economic-development work; staff said additional information and public hearing will be provided at a future meeting. (The transcript record of the amount contains garbled digits; staff told council that fuller details will be provided at the next hearing.)

Direct quote: Mack told the council, —We ask that the city council approve these resolutions that have presented.—

What's next: the bond/note ordinance will return for public hearing at the next meeting, and staff said more information on the Uptown redevelopment plan will be available soon. The approved equipment contracts will move forward under the authority given to the city manager.

Votes at a glance (as recorded in the meeting): Resolutions 30-36 (substation equipment) — approved by roll call; Resolution 37-24 (Miami County Public Defender contract) — approved; Resolution 38-24 (transfer to CIC) — approved. The meeting record shows affirmative roll-call responses for the measures; specific individual vote entries are in the official minutes.