Reynoldsburg City Council approved emergency legislation Sept. 10 to enter into a cooperative agreement with Etna Township for improvements to Taylor Road.

"Grant money has been awarded to the township, so this project is ready and waiting to go," Mayor Brad McCloud said. "They are getting ready to commence engineering and design and hope to get approval of the project."

The agreement calls for the city of Reynoldsburg to pay $33,477 in engineering costs for the project, plus 20 percent of the cost of right-of-way acquisitions, as long as the total cost of obtaining rights of way does not exceed $20,000.

The city would also pay 20 percent of the construction costs, as long as the total construction costs are not more than $354,200, according to the agreement.

In other business Monday, council put off any action on a new ward boundary map so the Ward Boundary Commission can continue to work on proposed changes. The city charter requires ward boundaries to be reviewed every 10 years.

Some proposed changes to the map were presented to council's finance committee during a meeting on Sept. 4.

"The ward boundary population has drastically changed in the past 10 years, so that there is a disparity in the size of the wards," Ward Boundary Commission Chair Preston Stearns said. "Our mission is to fix it so that we can have some kind of balance."

The commission worked with numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau and the firm Evans, Mechwart, Hambleton and Tilton (EMH&T) of New Albany, to put the map together.

The 2010 census counted 35,875 residents in Reynoldsburg.

Stearns said the population in the current Ward 1 is 7,447, while Ward 2's population is 9,267; Ward 3's population is 11,519 and Ward 4's population is 7,642. He said the target number to balance the wards was 9,017.

The proposed revisions change the council ward boundaries to put 9,020 residents in Ward 1; 8,996 residents in Ward 2; 9,006 residents in Ward 3 and 8,871 residents in Ward 4.

Councilman Scott Barrett represents Ward 1; Leslie Kelly serves Ward 2; Cornelius McGrady represents Ward 3 and Mel Clemens represents Ward 4.

Barth Cotner, Chris Long and Nathan Burd are council's at-large members.

The Ward Boundary Commission has been meeting since July. In addition to Stearns, members of the commission include Vice Chairman Bruce Sowell, Robert Cook, Marshal Spalding and Ryan Brzezinski, a school board member.