This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Lets Get The Monroe Avenue Restoration Completed

This is a post asking the parties involved with the Monroe Avenue gas line replacement project to properly restore the home owners yards, sidewalks and tree lawns.

Last summer, East Ohio Gas contracted with Mushrush utility contractors to replace gas lines on Monroe Ave between Archwood and Bailey Road.  The need for this replacement is not disputed, I examined some of the removed lines, they were badly rusted.  This was a matter of safety.  The project went through my precinct and I kept a sharp eye on the project, especially the restoration of lawns, sidewalks and drive approaches.  It is my experience, that contractors often short change these aspects of projects, to the detriment of the affected homeowners.

Most of the work done in my precinct was well done and I sent a letter of commendation to both Mushrush and East Ohio Gas.  Unfortunately, once this work was outside my precinct, the quality of restoration deteriorated greatly.  This poor restoration included: roots not properly removed, wood chips from cut down trees left in tree lawns, poor grading, poor quality topsoil, poor quality grass seed, and some problems with sidewalk restoration.  The extremely rainy weather was a factor; delaying construction until late fall, but workmanship was a prime factor.  The City of Cuyahoga Falls was also culpable by ordering the removal of several trees, which were not part of the original scope of work, and which occurred after the contractor’s restoration efforts.

East Ohio and the contractor were to come back and fix these problems in the spring.  As of the end of June, that has not happened.  At this point, no one seems to be taking steps to resolve this situation.  There is a lot of foot dragging and finger pointing by all the parties involved.  The residents are the losers in this situation, their yards are a mess and property values are compromised.

Find out what's happening in Cuyahoga Fallswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

East Ohio Gas, Mushrush Utility Contractors, The City of Cuyahoga Falls, and the tree removal contractor need to work together to solve this problem.  At this point, in the middle of a drought, it will probably have to wait till fall.  In the meantime, the residents need to be informed of what steps will be taken to restore their lawns and what the schedule will be.

In all construction projects of this kind, a brochure should be distributed to the residents, explaining their responsibilities to maintain the restored areas, for example: when to remove the straw cover, how often to water, when to begin mowing.

Find out what's happening in Cuyahoga Fallswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Cuyahoga Falls