Delaware County, Ohio approved $612,000 in public funds this August to paint a single traffic roundabout in Sunbury. County Engineer Chris Bauserman signed off on the contract Aug. 19.
The Delaware County Engineer's Office in Sunbury, Ohio approved the roundabout beautification contract on Aug. 19, 2026. County Engineer Chris Bauserman told the county commissioners the project was meant to improve driver visibility at the intersection of State Route 3 and Cheshire Road. The commissioners voted 3-0 to approve the spending the same day, according to the meeting minutes posted to the county website.
The full contract came to $612,000, paid out of the county's road and bridge fund. Of that, $214,000 went to design consulting, $187,000 to the paint and thermoplastic materials, and $211,000 to labor and installation, per the itemized invoice attached to the board's Aug. 19 agenda packet. The roundabout covers roughly 0.4 acres.
"It's a roundabout. People are going to drive through it at 25 miles an hour and never look down."— Carl Whitfield, Sunbury resident
The wheat stalks and compass rose
Sunbury resident Carl Whitfield, who lives two blocks from the intersection, said he first noticed the crews in early August and assumed it was a repaving job. "I thought maybe they were finally fixing the potholes," Whitfield said. He was not aware the project was decorative until a neighbor showed him the county's spending report.
The design consultant's invoice lists a line item of $38,500 for what it calls "community wayfinding iconography" — a set of painted wheat stalks and a compass rose meant to evoke the county's agricultural history. The compass rose alone required 1,100 square feet of specialty reflective paint, according to the materials breakdown filed with the contract.
Delaware County's road and bridge fund is financed through local gas taxes and license fees. The fund has covered roundabout construction at eleven intersections since 2018, but this is the first project to include a standalone art and design line item.
What commissioners are saying now
Commissioner Barbara Lewis defended the spending at the Aug. 26 board meeting, saying the roundabout would "serve as a gateway feature for the township for decades." Whitfield filed a public records request the same week asking for a full accounting of the design consultant's hourly rates.
The county has not set a completion date beyond "early fall," per Bauserman's Aug. 19 memo to commissioners. Whitfield's records request is due for a response by Sept. 16, 2026, under Ohio's public records law.
The paint has already gone down on the compass rose.
Man ARRESTED Riding Motorized Bar Stool
Only In America
Police in Ocean City, Maryland stopped a man riding a motorized bar stool down Coastal Highway on the night of Aug. 23, 2026. The stool had been fitted with a lawnmower engine, a throttle grip, and a rear license plate bolted to a piece of plywood.
Officers clocked the modified stool traveling roughly 20 miles per hour in a marked traffic lane, according to the Ocean City Police Department incident report. The rider, a 34-year-old local man, was pulled over near 25th Street and issued a citation for operating an unregistered vehicle on a public roadway.
The stool itself was seized as evidence. Booking photos included with the police report show a cupholder still bolted to the armrest, along with a half-finished can of soda that officers noted had not spilled during the stop.