Chillicothe — Council finally voted to put the renewal of the 10-year street levy on the spring ballot, without alterations – and the mayor gave insights on work in and around Yoctangee Park.
In a brief session with only three items on their agenda Monday evening, council passed all three and closed out 2025 financials on January 12th, 2026.
Council passed their resolution to place a renewal of the 0.2% street levy on the spring ballot. Sponsor Jeff Creed said they decided to stick to the 10-year limitation again to keep things simpler – which means that a future council will get the opportunity to reassess the levy again.
Creed said the revenue that the levy creates is pretty close to ideal to fund street and alley maintenance, so council could leave it as-is. Hear his earlier thoughts on possible changes.
In his regular briefing to council (hear it below), mayor Luke Feeney thanked city officials working through the typical chaos of “closing the books” on the year.
He then gave updates on the Appalachian Community Grant Program (ACGP) work under way in and around Yoctangee Park. The brick replacement that has closed the north block of Mulberry Street is an inconvenience, but Feeney said it is going well but slowly.
The city determined that the historical brick pavement needed to be completely replaced from the ground up, so the block-length plus the intersection with Riverside Street continues to be closed to traffic as it is being prepared for replacement concrete bricks.
Feeney said crews are probably impatient to build the lone roundabout remaining in the plans, at Yoctangee Parkway and Mill Street – but they want to avoid school season with the middle and high school there. He said all the work is required to be done in October, so implied summer work on the roundabout.
The mayor said they built in a $1M buffer in the budget for the project, which is “slowly being whittled away” but any remainder of it will go towards unfunded parts like a a new playground. He said you can see much work underway in the park from the west end of Riverside Street.
Find past stories on the project on the Scioto Post, including “Final Plans for Chillicothe’s Yoctangee Park Renovations Now Available.”
