Ada Mayor David Retterer presented his annual report to Ada council on Jan. 5. The report follows here.
Routine issues in the Village continue to be handled well. Ada is fortunate to have had active, deliberative, engaged, intelligent and dedicated councilors for many years and that has much to do with the current state of the village.
Councilors routinely challenge themselves and each other to ensure that they get to a solution that is right for the village and pay close attention to the finances and assets of the village. This allows Ada to be prepared for future needs, opportunities and emergencies.
Fiscal Status
The account structure for village funds has been completely redesigned to meet the needs of the Village in a more efficient fashion.
In addition, the Fiscal Officer has reorganized the reports for funds such as investments and indebtedness to make them more readable. The village is in the black for the year 2020.
Council and the Fiscal Officer changed the village's income tax agency from Central Collection Agency (CCA) to the Regional Income Tax Agency (RITA) with expectations that the result will serve the people of Ada and the village itself better.
Projects
Lincoln Street was rebuilt from just west of ONU's maintenance building west to Klingler Road. This was roughly a $3 million project at very little cost to the village itself – well over 90% were paid by state (and probably some federal) money. The village paid some of the engineering costs.
The project is now complete except for some small jobs that will be done in the spring. The street was open within the time allowed by the contract.
Other projects throughout the village were done as usual.
Employees
Our greatest asset is the employee base. Village Council and the administrative individuals focus on making it possible for our employees to succeed and to enjoy their work.
This means we need good facilities, good equipment, well maintained finances and well trained people. I believe the village has done a good job of this and that we are getting better at it. We have a great staff in place including those who worked at the pool.
I consider it a great honor to work with the group of people we have in the employ of the village. We added several new members to the staff and changed some responsibilities to make things run more smoothly and I believe that those changes were good for the employees and for the village.
Constitution
There are many on the national and state scene who want to mess with our constitutional and God given rights, among them free speech, a free press, freedom of religion, peaceable assembly, and the individual right of gun ownership.
I encourage council to join me in formally supporting and protecting all of our rights and opposing those who would give or take them away.
