Marietta's Mayor Josh Schlicher Gives His Weekly Update

MARIETTA, OH — Marietta's mayor spoke with Patch about the goings-on of the city for this week of 4/18/21-4/24/21.

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He said first things first, they're starting the general maintenance program. "Mowing grass, we're doing aquatic center renovation." He said they're working on a couple of projects up on Harmar Hill for the neighborhoods. The city will be working on some drainaige projects. "Of course the big fiber-optic traffic signal project is underway."

Schlicher said they're continuing to work on the massive slip issue out on the Marietta bike trail. He says they're doing behind-the-scenes work with their legal team and engineering team to see what their next steps will be. "As soon as we know where we're going to go with that we'll let everybody know."

They will be doing tree trimming and trail maintenance. "A lot of maintenance and clean-up." The city will be filling potholes, and sealing cracks in the road.

The Start Westward Monument is moving forward. "They're raising money for the monument." They already have $1,700,000 for the park project. "That's being designed. The first phase of that is going to be out for bid this fall." Construction on the first phase should start and finish in 2022. "The second phase will be after that, we're already working on funding for the second phase." The third phase will likely be years down the road with the goal for it to be completed by 2026, America's 250th birthday. He says there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work on this going on this week for this project.

Schlicher said they're going to be doing work on the landing this week. "We're going to be doing some tree removal. There's some dead and dangerous trees around the landing. Gonna cut all those back, cut all the trees down." He explained that they're going to pressure wash the whole landing in the next week, and doing a lot of repairs to that area. "To make it safe, it's been let go over the years."

He says they're going to be doing an entire asphalt overlay over the stonework that's in front of the river trail. "We're getting some concerns that people are going to trip, wreck a bicycle or something there." This is behind the monument on Front Street between Putnam and Scammel Streets. "We're going to take care of some of those issues there."

The city is continuing to work on the ongoing wastewater treatment plant project. "The ongoing planning and design of the water treatment plant, the new reverse osmosis plant." He said there are a lot of things in the works and his guys are staying busy.

All-out rollout is going to kick off in a couple of weeks. This is a program Schlicher started last year. "That's where we bring all the departments together for a massive maintenance program." The idea is they go street by street and take care of as many issues together that they can.

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