SUNBURY — The recently voter-approved Sunbury city charter amendment that will prohibit large-scale data center construction and the partially-collapsed East Cherry Street building have been top-of-mind for residents lately.
City Manager Daryl Hennessy provided an update to both items in his report during Wednesday’s city council meeting.
“I just wanted to note the immediate actions [for the charter amendment] that I think need to be taken,” Hennessy said. “One is we’ll obviously need to update our charter. I’ll wait for the certification of the results from the Board of Elections on that.”
Hennessy added that once the election results are certified, he will get the updated version of the city’s charter to city council and online for residents to see.
He also said the city will be updating its zoning code as a result of the charter amendment with help from landscape architecture, urban design and planning firm MKSK.
A total of 3,572 votes were counted so far across six precincts on the charter amendment.
According to final unofficial results from the Delaware County Board of Elections, the amendment received 2,809 votes to pass (78.64%) against 763 votes not to pass (21.36%).
What residents should expect on East Cherry Street
Hennessy said Sunbury’s police, administration, engineering department and services department have been working with state, county and other local officials to understand what is going on with the partially-collapsed 2 S. Vernon St. building and prepping for its repairs.
“At the moment, we anticipate that the permanent repairs are going to begin sometime next week, early part of next week, and could take up to two weeks— obviously dependent on what might be discovered,” he said.
Hennessy told council that some temporary “shoring” has already been done to the building, and that the various-leveled group of officials would meet again at the beginning of next week when the permanent improvements begin.
The group will discuss whether it possible to open a portion of Cherry Street while crews are repairing the building.
“We’re trying to balance the needs of the contractors to get the work done in a timely, safe fashion,” Hennessy said.
“In the meantime, [there is] a lot of traffic going through town, a lot of truck traffic going through town. With the help of the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), ODOT initially set the detour to U.S. Route 36 and State Route 605.”
Hennessy said the services department has added more detour signage in the area and ODOT has communicated the route change to the public.
“Most recently, we moved the digital board signage in closer [and it] basically says no through trucks over five tons,” Hennessy said. “With the help of the state and the county commercial vehicle inspection teams, we have started to write tickets for any through trucks over five tons that are coming through the city.
“I think it has had a substantial impact in terms of reducing the number of trucks that are coming through town, but it hasn’t eliminated all of them so we’re still working on that.”
As of Wednesday, Sunbury Chief of Police Rob Howard said officers have ticketed 12 trucks and stopped about 25 total around the city’s square.
