While there is no empirical evidence to say that City Engineer Jim Bischoff, P.E., is the busiest employee of the City of Bellefontaine, he’s likely in the starting lineup.
“I have a lot of stuff that comes across my desk,” Bischoff said with a chuckle.
A Hardin County native who attended Upper Scioto Valley and Ohio Northern University, Bischoff worked as the city engineer in Marion (twice) and in the private sector for a couple of decades before taking the Bellefontaine City Engineer’s position in January 2023.
City engineers have one of the longest job descriptions of any municipal employee, be that city small, medium or large in size.
It is Bischoff’s responsibility to come up with a strategy for land use in the city, design and oversee the planning, cost and installation of infrastructure (water and sanitary lines); coordinate with contractors who are building, whether a one-bedroom tiny house on vacant lot or putting up dozens of housing units; ensure those same contractors are meeting the city’s codes and specifications; decide which public projects get the immediate green light and which ones get moved to the back burner; inspect sites and monitor progress of the various projects, both private and public; as well as approve budgets for a score of projects that are ultimately presented to the Bellefontaine City Council for approval.
If that’s not enough, Bischoff is also the city’s zoning inspector. It’s in his mandate to ensure that any new construction — again be it a single family home or a 50-unit housing development — is in compliance with the city’s zoning codes to include lot sizes, elevations, set backs, runoffs, infrastructure, buffer zones and a dozens other zoning code rules with which all builders must comply.
Given all the action that is happening in Bellefontaine, Bischoff’s plate is full at present. He is keeping his hand in overseeing the infrastructure placement of the Ludlow Ridge project, located along County Road 1 (just south of the Bellefontaine Middle School), as well as the Maris Park project on the east side of the city (along Township Road 179).
These two projects will add approximately another 100 housing units to the city, along with the water and sanitary lines that go with them, plans for all of which can be found on Bischoff’s radar.
And that just the private sector aspect of his job. In his report to the Bellefontaine City Council at their last meeting, Tuesday, Oct. 22, he said that water line replacement for Richard Avenue from Main Street to Wright Street — a public project — is likely to be put off until spring.
In addition, a water main replacement that will follow Summit Street between Reservoir Road and Eastern Avenue should be getting underway within the next couple of weeks.
New meters will be installed as needed and residents have already paid for the project through their taxes, so any damages to properties as the construction is underway will be taken care of by the city.
Among other things on Bischoff’s desk are plans to replace the sanitary line along Garfield Avenue, running from West Street to the city limits. This will allow who live along that corridor to tie into the city lines — a priority of the Logan County Health District — and encourage possible further growth.
Thursday, Oct 24, Bischoff made the the loop around the newly-laid walking track at Blue Jacket Park.
The process of upgrading the track involved removing the old asphalt, which was showing its age, along with widening the path from 6 to 8 feet and resurfacing the whole thing.
This, too, was done under the auspices of Bischoff and his fellow Engineering Department employees, with a large part of the money spent on the project coming from a grant received by the Parks and Recreation Department.
“Overall, it is vast improvement,” Bischoff said of the new track. But being an engineer, who are notoriously disinclined to give any project an “A+”, Bischoff did find “a couple of spots” in the track that will need further attention.
Bischoff said that it was important to him that whatever comes through his office, from zoning applications and designs for everything from doghouses to skyscrapers, everyone gets the same treatment and a fair shake. He has made it his mission to ensure that any applicant has all the information they need to have at the beginning of the process, not at the end. He hates giving an applicant a surprise or “gotcha” near the end of a project.
“When we get to that initial stage of a zoning application, it doesn’t matter if it’s part of a subdivision or somebody purchased a new lot and they want to build a home,” Bischoff said. “We try to make sure that everybody is treated equally and they actually know what the expectation are.”