Lima City Council president Jamie Dixon presents Judy Gilbert with a proclamation honoring David Adams at Monday night’s council meeting.
Jacob Espinosa | The Lima News
LIMA — Lima Mayor Sharetta Smith said she would direct the city engineer to request proposals for traffic calming at Monday night’s Council of the Whole meeting.
The Council of the Whole continued its discussion on reducing unsafe driving from Tuesday, Sept. 24 (bit.ly/4gwRaFo) after a regular council meeting that saw council honoring former city councilman and cartoonist David Adams after his passing Aug. 9.
“He was a man for all seasons,” Judy Gilbert said of Adams. “He loved working with his community and I’m sorry he is not here to see this.”
Council also heard from the National Center for Urban Solutions and passed ordinances for the mayor to enter into contract with Veterans Memorial Civic Center and its foundation and to apply for grant funds from the Justice Assistance Grant Program through the U.S. Department of Justice and from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity.
“I would like to thank the law department and Ric Stolly for working with the city,” Smith said of the contracts with the Civic Center. “This will allow us to operate lots of work on the Greater Lima Region Park and Amphitheater behind the scenes including advocating for two changes to the state’s funding requirements.”
During the Council of the Whole meeting, Councilman Tony Wilkerson pleaded for the city not to stop at new signage to reduce speeding.
“I think a common theme was being mindful of driving habits to go with more pronounced pedestrian signs,” he said of the information presented during the previous meeting. “Just because you post more signs doesn’t mean it slows people down.”
Councilman Jon Neeper called for signage as an important first step toward changing habits.
“There are stop signs on every corner in Delaware,” he said. “There needs to be a comprehensive approach and there also need to be immediate things done. We have a real problem with speeding and everyone knows it. We are going to have a serious accident that causes someone to lose their life.”
City Engineer Ian Kohli agreed with the need for a comprehensive plan.
“I think soliciting more input from residents is an obvious solution,” he said. “One thing we talked about last time is the different strategies each city uses. They’re trying to see what works and every community picks different things.”
“I’m going to direct the city engineer to issue a request for proposals for a traffic calming program and to update the request from council and the public for additional information when issues come to the traffic commission,” Smith said to close the meeting.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
