City to buy building

The city will own the property where a building is to be torn down.

Portland Board of Works on Thursday approved the purchase of the former Hunt’s building from Juan Marentes.

Board members also approved the purchase of a new trash truck and a salt spreader for the city’s street department.

Marentes owns the building at 208 and 210 N. Meridian St. that was declared unsafe in August and has been scheduled for demolition to begin during the second half of this month. City attorney Wes Schemenaur told the board that Marentes had previously expressed a willingness to sell the building to the city in order to save the structure. (Portland Redevelopment Commission was considering options to save the building but last month deemed the cost to be prohibitive.)

Since the redevelopment commission’s decision and the subsequent awarding of the bid to tear down the building, Marentes was approached again, Schemenaur said. He was still willing to sell the building and signed a contract to do so for $23,000. (That matches the price he purchased the building for when he bought it.)

Schemenaur noted that the city originally accepted a bid of $249,000 to bring down the building, but JAShroyer Group reduced its price by $64,000 because it was already in the city working on the Bailey Building on Main Street.

“I think if we’re going to invest that kind of money to tear it down, we ought to be the owners of the property,” said board of works member Steve McIntosh. “Especially if we can buy it for that amount of money, so we don’t have a lien on somebody else’s property.”

Board members Jerry Leonhard, Mayor Jeff Westlake and McIntosh unanimously approved the purchase.

They also agreed to meet at 4 p.m. Thursday with LeeAnn Miller, who owns the building adjacent to the former Hunt’s Building, and attorney Eric Welch. Miller is working with Welch to ensure the safety of her building during the demolition process. (Welch also represented The Greazy Pickle, which was adjacent to the Bailey Building.)

Street department superintendent Matt Shauver presented requests for purchases, including a new trash truck. He explained the current trucks were bought a few months apart in 2017 and 2018 and that one of them has had some maintenance issues. He suggested replacing one now and holding off on the other in order to get them in a rotation. He presented a quote from Best Equipment of Indianapolis for a new truck at a cost of $183,820.98 after receiving $50,000 for trading in a current truck.

Shauver also asked the board to buy a new salt spreader. The city currently has two salt spreaders, one of which has bearings beginning to go bad.

He received two quotes, with Kalida Truck Equipment of Kalida, Ohio, coming in lowest at $11,700. (Shauver plans to keep both current salt spreaders in order to have one as a back-up.)

The board approved both purchases. (Buying the trash truck will require Portland City Council approval of an additional appropriation.)

In other business, the board:

•Approved donating self-contained breathing apparatus equipment to the South Adams Schools fire science program as well as volunteer fire departments in neighboring counties. Portland’s department partnered with the five other fire departments in the county to receive an $815,545 Assistance to Firefighters Grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to purchase new equipment. (Fire chief Mike Weitzel noted that Portland has hired four firefighters who have come out of the South Adams program, which serves students in Jay and Adams counties.)

•OK’d the city’s off-duty police agreement. It is the same as what has been in place but needed to be updated following the promotion of Dustin Mock to police chief.