LIME CITY – Perrysburg Township will contribute $1 million dollars toward a roundabout to fix a dangerous intersection.

Township trustees on Wednesday approved a resolution supporting and authorizing all steps necessary to pursue and complete the application for grant funds to improve the intersection of Ohio 199 and Five Point Road.

The intersection has had 12 crashes – one fatal – in the two-year period from 2020-2022.

Township Administrator Jon Eckel said while the township did not get a Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality grant it applied for last year because there wasn’t enough traffic at the intersection to satisfy air quality reduction requirements, crash statistics at the intersection exceed the Ohio Department of Transportation’s threshold for an application for grant funds to approve the intersection.

“The crash data definitely supports the application now,” he said. “There’s been several crashes there and they’ve all been serious.”

The cost of the project is estimated at $6,478,000 and it will change what is now a four-leg intersection with two-way stop control to a roundabout with five spokes as Dunbridge Road, which intersects Five Point Road 100 feet west of the intersection, would be included.

It is a fiscal year 2029 project, Eckel said.

“Between now and then I will do my best to apply for grants … and see if any of our local entities would like to help toward our local match,” he said.

“We all know it’s bad,” he said about other county entities, including the Wood County Sheriff’s Office.

It’s not a nice intersection to travel through, said police Chief Matt Gazarek.

According to numbers provided by ODOT, of the 12 crashes at the intersection from 2020-22, six were injury crashes and 10 were angle crashes, meaning two vehicles were going straight through the intersection.

We’ve talked about this intersection for years, said Trustee Gary Britten.

“I believe 2022 set a new crash record for that intersection,” Eckel said.

According to the resolution, there are at least four crashes a year at that intersection with 38% of them fatal.

Also at the meeting, trustees hired two new police officers.

There were 11 candidates for the jobs, Gazarek said.

“We’re very happy that we found two local guys who fit in well with Perrysburg Township Police Department. We think they will serve the township well,” he said.

Hunter Johnson is a 2016 graduate of St. John’s Jesuit High School and Hunter Dotson is a 2019 graduate of Lake High School.

“We can’t be more happy to bring both of these guys on,” Gazarek said.

Both have graduated from the police academy and will earn a starting wage of $35.76 per hour.

Johnson will start Monday and Dotson will start May 6.

Trustees also:

Learned there will be a meeting Friday with Rossford to continue to discuss a contract to provide fire service in the city.

Learned requests for proposals have been sent to three firms for construction of the new township administration building. Those companies are Comte Construction, Miller Diversified and Rudolph-Libbe.

Learned the township has made plans for the April 8 solar eclipse.

“We are ready,” Eckel said. “We will have all hands on deck for that day.”

Learned the process of hiring a finance director is in the interview stage.

Agreed to sell a surplus 2016 Dodge Charger to Penta Career Center for $2,000

Agreed to pay $13,586 for an annual license with Intellitech Corporation’s Alert for emergency service needs related to computer-aided dispatch and record management systems for the police department.

Held a public hearing and approved a request from Gulfstream Development to rezone one parcel of land from R-5 multi-family resident to C-2 community business district. The property is located at the northeast corner of Oregon and Ayers roads.

Set a public hearing for April 17 for a zoning request change for five parcels at the northwest corner of Tracy Road and Ohio 795. The request from Schaller Limited Partnership is to rezone the parcels from R-1 rural residential district to C-3 highway business district.