the medina county engineer update · the medina county engineer update 2005 - issue #1 michael j....

The Medina County Engineer Update 2005 - Issue #1

Michael J. Salay, P.E., P.S.

EMPLOYEE INFORMATION

MICHAEL J. SALAY, County Engineer

Taking the helm in 2005 is our new CountyEngineer, Michael J. Salay.

Mike has held various positions with MedinaCounty for almost 30 years now, and has made asmooth transition into his newest position. Mikeserved for the past 15 years as Assistant CountyEngineer under David L. Miller, and was a professionalengineer when he first began working with the MedinaCounty Engineer’s office. Through the years he addedthe title of Professional Surveyor as well.

Mike graduated from the University of Akron in1976 with a bachelor of science degree in civilengineering cum laude. He received his Certificate asProfessional Surveyor in 2000.

Mike is a graduate of Leadership MedinaCounty for 2003. He is married with two daughters (theoldest daughter following in his footsteps in theengineering field). His wife, Shelly, is a Piano Teacher.

Mike is a fan of the Detroit Red Wings andenjoys hockey enough that he is now playing it himselfwith a local group for fun. He is also a Civil War historyafficionado, attending re-enactments given by manylocal areas in Ohio, following television documentariesand collecting and reading books on the subject.

Besides working in the yard and around the house,Mike enjoys playing Frisbee with Max, his lab mix pup,and has recently welcomed back another 2 year-old labthat has been at training the last year or so.

ANDREW CONRAD,Assistant County Engineer

Who knew back in1996, that when the youngbrash student from theUniversity of Akron wasworking during the summer inthe Survey Department, thatnot only would he come backto a full time position after hegraduated, but that a mere fiveyears later he would beappointed Assistant CountyEngineer! Congratulations toAndrew Conrad!!

Andy received his Bachelor of Science in CivilEngineering and Certificate in Surveying Technologyfrom the University of Akron, and began working for theMedina County Engineers full-time in May of 2000.(Hmmmm, notice that “University of Akron” thing?)

Andy is married with two young daughters andhe and his wife are expecting another child in August.

He still has the border collie our AdministrativeSecretary, Gina, talked him into adopting when heworked as a student nine years ago. The family hasgrown from only Andy and one dog -- to a wife, two(and a half) children and his dog!

JANINE SARNOWSKI, Human ResourceCoordinator

Janine Sarnowski has been with the Countysince 1986, worked with three different CountyEngineers and for the first 18 years was thePermit/Personnel Coordinator for the Engineer’s Office.At that time there were only two inspectors and herselfin the permit department. It was also much easierhandling personnel matters with only 19 people in theEngineer’s Department and 20 at the Highway Garage.The number has grown to double that with 38employees now making up the Engineer’s departmentand 44 full-time employees making up the Highway



Department along with approximately 10-14 studentworkers every summer.

With growing personnel concerns and changinglaws, the personnel matters were requiring more andmore time and attention. After taking office, MikeSalay appointed Janine to the new position of HumanResource Coordinator. Janine is married to Conrad(Mayor of Seville) with two children and 3 (so far)grandchildren. In her spare time she sings and actswith the Galaxy Theatre Players, models and acts foradvertisements and TV commercials, has a gift shop inher home and enjoys her back yard pond and gardenswhere she relaxes with her girls: Peanut (a 2 year oldlittle brown “rat” terrier) and Hattie (a 4-year old, white,long legged, stone deaf, Jack Russell terrier).

MATT MARTIN, Civil Engineer

In 2002 a very nice young man came to workwith the Engineer’s office for the summer. MatthewMartin was at that time attending Toledo University(TOLEDO!!?!?!) for Engineering and working inbetween school semesters. Since we couldn’t seem toget rid of him, and his work was acceptable, we againhired him for the winter break and then again for thesummer of 2003. At that time he was working with theSurvey department and another of our Civil Engineers,Dan Becker. Since Dan loved supervising (what?) andsince he decided Matt didn’t do too badly.... he broughtMatt back to work over the 2003/2004 winter vacationperiod. Still not tired of us, (actually we were lucky toget him) when he once again applied for summer workin 2004, Dan and the rest figured what the heck, wewouldn’t have to train a new kid this way, so we let himwork for the summer!

With his courses now completed, and summercoming to an end, we just couldn’t seem to scare himaway. So upon his graduation, we kept him workingas an intermittent Drafting Technician with FredBoreman’s Technical Services Department. Of coursehe did very well - but when a full-time position becameavailable in early 2005 for a Civil Engineer, Matt quicklyapplied, and managed to convince our AssistantCounty Engineer Andy Conrad, that he would be anasset to the department. With his good humor andfriendly, hard working attitude, he has been and isready for anything Andy throws at him.

Matt graduated in May from the University ofToledo with a BA in Construction Engineering, and is

one of the few graduates that had the opportunity andgood fortune to put his learning into immediatepractice.

All joking aside, we are definitely pleased andproud to have him as a member of our department!Congratulations Matt!

ROBERT SCHOENBECK, EDWARD YONALLY,Highway Foremen

The Highway Department is proud to announcethe promotions of Mr. Robert Schoenbeck and Mr.Edward Yonally to the positions of Foremen in theMedina County Highway Department.

Robert Schoenbeck originally worked inPainesville and was hired in 1998 as a full-timeHighway Worker with the Medina County HighwayDepartment. Bob and his wife, Holly live in Spencerwith their two children: Ryan (11 years) and Shelby (9years), both currently in elementary school. He and hisfamily enjoy hunting, fishing and camping together intheir spare time.

Edward Yonally started out in 1989 working asa student employee for the summer. He enjoyed it somuch he applied when a full-time position becameavailable and was hired as a full-time Highway Workerwith the County in 1991. He enjoys landscaping anddesigning his yard and sometimes does landscapingwork for his friends and family as well. Ed is also veryinterested in weather forecasting and is getting moreand more involved as he learns more on this subject.Ed and his wife, Jenny have three children, Julia, hisoldest just beginning fifth grade this year, Allysa andSydney.

Congratulations to you both on yourpromotions!

NEW HIGHWAY EMPLOYEE

In June of 2004, Jamie Skidmore was hired as asummer employee. Jamie has been in the buildingtrades for over 10 years, working for SkidmoreConstruction (yes, a relative) and Pride One Homes.He has worked with tractors, mowers and variousequipment for many years and we were fortunateenough to acquire his skills full-time! With the re-grouping of the Highway, and 2 employees moving intoForemen positions, we were able to open up the full-



Before: Servers tucked in wherever space available and in noconvenient order prior to new set-up.

time position of Highway Worker II. Jamie applied andbecame full-time on May 20th of this year. Welcome tothe pack and congratulations!!

Jamie has two sons, Zachary (10 Years old)and Kyle (5 years old) and lives in the Lodi area.

COUNTY ROADEO

Congratulations to Lynn Jenkins and MitchStaniford who were our 1st and 2nd place finishers in theMedina County Roadeo in October of 2004. TheRoadeo provides a fun as well as useful test on thevarious operative skills by county employees, andsometimes with local township entries as well, in theoperation of their snowplows.

As top placers in the local Roadeo, Lynn andMitch were also able to participate in the OhioInvitational Snowplow & Equipment Roadeo for localsnowplow in Toledo, Ohio in May accompanied by BillMetzger. This was an opportunity for Lynn and Mitchto test their skills against drivers from around the State,as well as an opportunity for Bill to observe and notethe workings of the State Roadeo.

COUNTY-WIDE SUPERVISORY TRAINING BEGINS

With the coordination of the Commissioner’sHR Department and the Engineer’s HR Department,Clemans Nelson & Associates was contracted to holdsupervisory classes for up to 50 employees over aperiod of 1 year which would include at least 6 half dayclasses. The classes are held in one of our ownclassroom areas in the Administration Building which isvery convenient for most of those attending.

The classes filled up quickly with registrantsfrom Human Services, Job & Family Services, MCSE,MCE, The County Home, the Sheriff’s department, andother offices.

The first two classes concerning “EmploymentLaw for Supervisors” have been held as well as thethird class: “Role and Function of a Supervisor”. Allthree have been very informative and well received.The classes were timely as there were a largepercentage of new (or soon to be new) supervisorypersonnel. Since some of the laws have changed asrecently as in the last month, the seminars wereextremely informative and eye-opening! There are

three more classes coming up that hopefully will be asinformative as the first three.

Because of the wonderful response from the variousdepartments, future classes are being discussed andworked on at this time.

HIGHWAY ENGINEER’S SERVERS GET ANEW RACK SYSTEM

Lowell Filak, Computer Operations Supervisor

Server hardware, equipment and wires werebeginning to crowd together in the computer room asmore and more computer equipment was being added

to the Highway Engineer’s various departments.

It was time to re-vamp the computer room withthe multitude of network wire, server hardware,keyboards and computer equipment into a moreefficient and organized computer room!

Well, the switch-over of all Highway Engineer’sservers to a new rack system is now complete! Theswitch has several positive impacts:

1. More efficient use of space by allowing units to be stacked vertically. 2. More efficient air flow through the servers due to all servers facing the same direction in the room. 3. A more efficient use of backup power due to the



Before: Miss-match set ups with wires everywhere!!

After: No more haphazardly hanging wires, now itsnice and neat and all in one place!

After: New setup is efficient and looks much nicer!

centralization of all UPS (uninterruptible power supply) needs into a single redundant unit.

4. Easier access to server hardware due to the sliding shelves on which all servers are now mounted.

5. Improved KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) power, and network wire routing due to the limited distance between machines.

6. Plus, It looks a LOT better!

A time-consuming job that had wonderful results! Greatjob group!

GENERATOR PROJECT COMPLETED

When the networks weren’t as complex as they arenow, and we didn’t all need to share data, send email,connect to the Web to research, upload, download,and basically communicate with the outside worldlocally and around the globe, it was a problem if therewas a power outage, but it wasn’t really a big deal tomost people. However as technology has progressedat a very rapid rate, more and more businesses andindividuals rely heavily on those connections staying upand staying secure.

The Highway Engineer’s Computer Departmentcan personally attest to this as our phones all startringing and people come running when somethingdisappears off the network - the email server, theinternet connection, the file server or one of the manyother servers that we have virtual connections to, or



that are connected to this building across the CountyBackbone.

When Northeast U.S. and Canada experienceda black-out in August 2003, it was discussed that ifpossible, we needed to have a generator installed thatwould keep all the servers, connections, switches,routers, firewalls and internet connections running (andthe A/C unit required to keep all this equipment cool!)even if the rest of the building went out.

After researching and then meeting with anelectrician, more research, meeting with specialists inthis field, the utility companies, more research, and yeteven MORE research, things were finally comingtogether! With some careful scheduling and loads ofcooperation from other departments in the building, wefinally had our gas generator, an Olympian G80FS.April 14, 2005 was the final commissioning, inspection,and the first test where power was cut to the room andthe generator kicked in to handle things. SUCCESS!!Most of the people who rely on those connectionsstaying up are not even aware of the new safetymeasure, but the Computer Department is breathingeasier now when lightning strikes, or lights in the restof the building flicker!

2005 MEDINA COUNTY MAPSBeth Mika, Tax Map Technician

The 2005 County Maps are available with ournew County Engineer’s (Michael J. Salay) picture on it!Many new roads have been added to the map alongwith additional information. With all the new

subdivisions being built, even more roads will need tobe added for the 2007 map!!

All the job descriptions are being updated bythe HR Department, but some positions, such as theTax Map Technicians, are also getting new names!Our Tax Map Tech I’s and Tech II’s are now called GISTechnician 1 and 2. We have a Special MappingTechnician and of course the GIS TechnicalSupervisor. Even though we have updated ourinternal job titles and descriptions, as usual we have asecondary title that placates DAS.

Subdivisions and Lot Splits are one of the jobs thatkeep the Tax Map Office busy. Along with 3annexations so far this year, the office has beenrecording 97 new lot splits and 62 subdivisions thathave now been created and filed.

LOT SPLITS SUBDIVISIONS

Jan. 10 15Feb. 10 11Mar. 20 7April 11 9May 15 8June 15 9July 16 3

WHAT’S HAPPENING AT THE HIGHWAYDEPARTMENT?

4/10's start.... At the end of May, the Highway



Department voted in favor (24 to 13) of a four-day workweek. Beginning on June 6th of this year andcontinuing until Labor Day, the scheduled hours ofwork will be 6:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday throughThursday. Four full-time employees have remained ona five-day schedule. This was done so that the officewould be staffed five days a week in order to continueto provide service to the public and be available forcontact.

Pavement Repair..... On May 19th, the HighwayDepartment began its pavement repair program. Atthis time, repair has been completed on Ridgewood,Granger and Leatherman Roads. Ridgewood andGranger Roads were a high priority because of thescheduled construction on State Route 18 in 2006.Since these roads will be used as part of the detourduring the state project, the County wanted to makesure they were able to support the additional trafficduring that time. An overlay was also installed atculvert 34 on Kennard Road.

Two paving contracts, as of July 14th, have now beencompleted, both by Kokosing Construction. The firstcontract included sections of Windfall, Spieth andHamilton Roads. The second resurfacing contractincluded sections of Ryan, Mennonite, Bear Swamp,Root, River Corners and Vandemark Roads. A thirdcontract has been awarded also to KokosingConstruction and will include sections of Erhart, Neff,Grafton, Branch, Mattingly, Bellus and Granger Roads.As of this date, over 25 miles of roadway have been orare scheduled to be paved by contract.

42 culvert sites have had drainage work done so farthis year. 19 culverts have been replaced and pavedso far, 10 have been extended and another 6 havebeen repaired; steel plating was installed over oneculvert that had a deteriorated concrete deck (for laterreplacement); and six culvert sites have had theshoulder areas widened by placing fill dirt. A largenumber of these sites were on the roads that havebeen, or are scheduled for resurfacing.

Approximately 1.5 miles of ditching has beencompleted by excavator/gradall and about 8 miles ofroad ditch has been cleaned by rotary ditching so far.It has been estimated that approximately 2000 yards ofdirt has been hauled to the culvert sites and to ourstockpile, from a pile of dirt that was available from aconstruction site at Great Oaks Trail in Wadsworth.

Chip sealing is scheduled to begin on July 19th. Inaddition to chip sealing Ridgewood and GrangerRoads, we have also scheduled chip sealing for Ryan,Mennonite, Bear Swamp, Root, River Corners andVandemark Roads. These six road sections are thosewhich have been resurfaced earlier in the year. Asection of Firestone Road is also scheduled to besealed this year. Seal oil will be obtained through acontract awarded to Asphalt Technologies out ofEdison, Ohio.

The roadside mowers are about halfway done withthe second round of the County mowing. The firstround included two side mowers covering 330 miles ofCounty roads, and the second round is being coveredby two side mowers along with two boom mowerscovering the same 330 miles. All told, by the time thesecond round is completed, the mowers will havetraveled almost 1900 miles, just on the County roadsystem! By the end of the mowing season the mowerswill have traveled well over 3500 miles.

Bridge No. 26 on Medina Line Road was bid forremoval and replacement. The low bidder was PageExcavating and work should start late this summer.Bridge No. 33 on Station Road is nearing completion ofthe design stage and should be constructed during thefall of this year. A large bridge repair project wasperformed this past spring on Bridge No. 14 onPawnee Road. A spring storm caused the Black Riverto break out of its banks at the bridge and underminethe road behind the bridge abutment. County forcesinstalled a new wall and an erosion protection barrier tohelp prevent future undermining.

County workers have gone from record heavysnowstorms to record heavy rain and wind and havedone a remarkable job keeping up with Mother Nature!

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW... In the winter of 2004-05,snowfall amounts ranged from over 100 inches at thenorth end of the County to 70 inches at the south endof the County. These amounts represented near, orgreater than, record amounts previously set. And forthose of us who might complain of the constant 90°temperatures we have been receiving most of July,remember that the last day the fleet was out was April24th with accumulations of 5-6 inches of snow

throughout most of the County!! It was only twomonths ago that we had our last actual snowfall onMay 3rd!!



TECHNICAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT

Our Technical Staff has been working on quitea few Township Road Projects as well as County RoadProjects this year. Starting at the designing andplanning stage, moving on to the bidding process forCounty Projects or assisting in Township biddingprocesses, moving on to pavement widening,upgrading, etc. and ending with the finished product,the numerous projects have kept the employees inTechnical Services busy also!

The Fenn Road upgrade is underway at S.R.42-S.R. 3, as well as the upgrade for the SpiethRoad/Marks Road intersection.

Construction work is completed for theSubstation/Laurel Road intersection and a study hasbegun for the Reid HIll, Allard Road and State Roadintersection upgrades and re-alignments.

Construction is under way for the WestfieldRoad/CSX Railroad grade crossing and the GarmanRoad intersection improvement.

A number of Township projects have beencompleted so far. These projects included resurfacing,paving, crack sealing, leveling, patching and wedgingfor the following roads:

Boneta Road and Reimer, Beach Road and Reimerand Woodview Road in Wadsworth Township; EgyptRoad and Erhart Road east to Lance Road in LafayetteTownship; Hamlin Road from Hamilton to Foskett Roadin Medina Township; and a number of miscellaneousroads in Hinckley, Harrisville and Granger Townshipsare now completed.

Moving on from road projects, the staff also wasworking on various Township culvert/drainage projects.

Guilford Township: Lee Road Culvert No.1 (18" CMP)replacement and site improvement has beencompleted as well as the Hubbard Valley Road CulvertNo. 13 (24" CIP) replacement and site improvement.

Litchfield Township: Jones Road Culvert No. 4 (5'X3'concrete box) replacement and site improvement.

Liverpool Township: Crocker Road Ditch Enclosure(1600 L.F.) improvement has been constructed, the

bidding process has started for the West Law RoadCulvert No. 7 (6'X4' concrete box) replacement and siteimprovement and next on their list is the West LawCulvert No. 6 (7'X5' concrete box) replacement and siteimprovement.

Medina Township has bidding under way for theRemsen Road Culvert No. 5 replacement and siteimprovement and another culvert replacement pending.

Montville Township: The Forest Lake Drive dam pondimprovement is completed; the drive pondimprovement for Country Club Drive is pending andbidding is taking place for the Good Road Culvert No.9 (72" CMP) replacement and site improvementproject.

Sharon Township: Four different culverts along BonetaRoad have had replacement and site improvementconstruction completed.

Wadsworth Township has completed the Wall RoadDitch Enclosure improvement project and YorkTownship has finished the Branch Road Culvert No. 18replacement and site improvement project.

Besides all of the above, there are numerousprojects being processed for parking lot upgrades, curband gutter upgrades, drainage improvements, ditching,culvert replacements and retaining wall replacements.Our staff has been keeping busy assisting townships inthe planning, designing and bidding process as well asbidding, planning and designing their own Countyprojects.

Head of the department is Fred Boreman. Hisstaff includes Dan Becker (Civil Engineer), Joe O’Hara(Engineering Technician), Richard Moore (ProjectTechnician) and Steve Hawk (Drafting Technician).

THE SURVEY DEPARTMENT

Many of the various projects require theassistance of the survey crew and they are kept busynot only doing work to assist the other departments,but also doing various work for many of the townships,and assisting the Tax Map office with reviews, surveysand research work.

So far in 2005 the Survey Department hascompleted field work on four bridges and 25 culverts;numerous ditch profiles and site plans; several



property-line surveys on County and Township ownedland; right-of-way staking on County and Townshiproads; construction staking for several road projects,sidewalk projects and paving stakes on eight Countyroads, as well as numerous bench mark loops.

The crew also completed a boundary survey of1.5 miles of the Sharon Township/WadsworthTownship line between C.H. 52 and T.H. 54 where theyrecovered five original stone survey monuments fromthe 1800's, the oldest being from 1851, that mark theTownship line.

Besides working outside in Ohio’s changingweather systems, the crew also keeps busy in theoffice drafting many of the above projects andnumerous road easements; doing calculations;reviewing problem surveys for the Tax MapDepartment; updating road records and researchingeverything connected with the Engineer’s office.

Finally, in their “spare” time they haverecovered, measured and photographed nine otheroriginal survey stones shown on old records as part oftheir on-going Stone Recovery Program. The crewmarks the stones with orange carsonite posts in orderto make it easier for future surveyors to find and usethe original survey stones.

Darrell Kent is the Surveying Coordinator. BillSaganes and Greg Balogh are his two SurveyTechnicians.

TIDBITS FROM THE WORLD OF SUBDIVISIONS:

There has been no shortage of work for ouroffice in the area of residential subdivisions. Since thebeginning of the year, we have reviewed and approvedfor construction nearly twenty sets of constructiondrawings for new subdivisions. Concept Plans arebeing reviewed at a rate of 4 a month.

A much anticipated golf course has openedafter a couple of years of construction. This courseincludes 5 ODNR dams and two tunnels under therailroad. (I hear a couple sleeves of balls are in orderif you plan on playing a round.) Another golf coursehas been permitted for construction earlier this summerwith the golf cart underpass under Wolff Road, (T.H.94), having been completed recently.

Last year we upgraded our pavement specifications for

new residential subdivision streets. For concretestreets, we are requiring either 7" of fiber-reinforcedconcrete with 2" of basestone on a minimum of 6" ofcement stabilized subgrade or 9" of fiber-reinforcedconcrete with 3" of basestone on a subgrade passinga standard proofroll. To date, both of these optionsappear to be performing well.

Matt Martin has come aboard to help in planreview and inspection. He has a constructionengineering degree from the University of Toledo. Thefact that we hired an engineer that did not graduatefrom the University of Akron still needs to beinvestigated, as most of our office are former AkronZips.

PERMIT DEPARTMENT UPDATE

The Permit Department is on pace for 2005, to set newrecords for permits issued within Medina County. Thiswill make 10 out of the last 11 years that the PermitDepartment has exceeded the previous year’s recordfor the amount of permits issued.

So far this year, the number of permits issued for eachcategory are as follows:

Stormwater Permits 624Driveway Permits 748Ditch Enclosure Permits 64Highway Use Permits 725Special Hauling Permits 927

With the continued growth in Medina County, thePermit Department will strive to meet the growingneeds of the County’s residents and businesses.

the medina county engineer update · the medina county engineer update 2005 - issue #1 michael j....

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