Weather halts sidewalk project

Staff report

LIBERTY

A sidewalk project on Church Hill Road that began two weeks ago is on hold until spring because of cold weather.

Township Administrator Pat Ungaro said that contractor Foust Contstruction Inc. of Girard and the Trumbull County Engineer’s office agreed that it is too cold now to pour concrete.

The form for the sidewalk, along the north side of the road, is dug out.

“It’s unfortunate,” Ungaro said. “They shoveled everything out.”

The contractor poured a sidewalk on Colonial Drive then started on Church Hill, Ungaro said.

The sidewalk is being built with $300,000 in funding from state Safe Routes to Schools money.

The township is not using tax money for any part of the project, Ungaro said.

The project starts near the library at 415 Church Hill Road and extends east to the Fifth Avenue extension.

Its extends a block north to connect with an existing sidewalk, then continues along Church Hill to the township administration building.

The Colonial Drive sidewalk project allows the residents of the Campus Health Center to travel to Belmont Avenue more easily in their wheelchairs.

That project was paid for by a $128,000 grant the county received from federal transportation enhancement funds that were distributed through the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments. The county also paid $40,000 for a local share that the township is paying back over three years.

The idea for that sidewalk began seven years ago as a conversation between township Trustee Jodi Stoyak and a resident at the nursing home named Mark Meszaros.

The lack of a sidewalk there had been a safety issue not just for the nursing home but for the whole neighborhood, they said.