ThisWeek Canal Winchester 7/14

Page 1

July 14, 2011

Council approves 2012 budget of $13.3M By ANDREW MILLER ThisWeek Community Newspapers Canal Winchester City Council unanimously approved a $13.3-million 2012 budget last week that includes a $5.7million general fund. Details were discussed at a finance committee meeting and public hearing about the proposal prior to council’s July 5 meeting.

For fiscal year 2012, the anticipated beginning balance for Jan. 1, 2012 is $10,428,644; total revenues are anticipated to be $12,903,730 for the year and total budgeted expenses are expected to be $13,306,099, resulting in an end-ofyear balance of $10,026,275. “This is a guideline, right?” committee member Rick Deeds asked. “So is there any reason we shouldn’t be aggressive with our revenue and conser-

vative with spending?” City finance director Nanisa Osborn said revenues are aggressive and cannot be modified as easily as expenses can. “I’d say we are being aggressive with our revenue figures,” she said. “My guess is we’re going to lose $180,000 from state government; the estate tax has gone down some and it will go away totally in 2013. “We met with the county auditor and

adjusted (revenue) down again. Income tax is where we thought it would be and so far, seems stable,” Osborn said. She said the opening of Diley Ridge Medical center has “in many ways” offset the loss of a Waste Management Inc. transfer station in Canal Winchester, “but the doctors’incomes haven’t yet because they practice in multiple jurisdictions so it’s been harder to get filings correct.” Committee member Steve Donahue

asked if money were allocated to update the sound system used at Town Hall and if the public tennis court construction at the high school will be completed with 2011 funds or included in the 2012 budget. “We don’t just have a volume issue (with the sound system) but also a recording issue,” Osborn said. “There is money See COUNCIL, page A2

Dennis: Timing was right for HFI consolidation

UNUSUAL WAGON

By ANDREW MILLER ThisWeek Community Newspapers

and landscape plans for both the sign and for screening two electrical service boxes on the western portion of the property. The commission also unanimously approved a variance sought by Charles Smith, 650 Bowen Road, who submitted plans to expand an existing barn from 4,920 square feet to 24,360 square feet so it can be used as an indoor horse-training facility. He said he purchased the property to replace his current facilities. “I won’t be doing anything different than what I’ve been doing across the street in a building I built 25 years ago,” Smith said. “I purchased this property in 2008. My business is training riding horses, cutting horses, not race horses, so I need to be able to do

Timing played a part in HFI Inc. LLC’s decision to move its operations from two plants in Groveport and Obetz to a single facility in Over the next two Canal Winyears, we’ll transfer chester, according to company over about 228 associCEO Walter ates. First phase will Dennis. be complete by the The move, end of the year – that announced last week, will will be 98 associates eventually bring from our Groveport more than 200 location. jobs to Canal Winchester. “Over the WALTER DENNIS next two years, —CEO, HFI Inc. LLC we’ll transfer over about 228 associates,” Dennis said. “First phase will be complete by the end of the year – that will be 98 associates from our Groveport location. That’s about $5 million in annual salary. Then another 40 in first quarter (of 2012) with about $2.3 million in annual salary.” Groveport will be the first HFI location vacated, according to Dennis, and then HFI will begin the transition of administrative staff members out of Obetz. Hourly employees there will stay until the beginning of 2013. Canal Winchester Mayor Michael Ebert told city council on July 5 that HFI planned to buy the current TS Trim manufacturing plant at 59 Gender Road, at the corner of Gender Road and Walnut Street. TS Trim will consolidate its operations at the company’s primary Canal Winchester location at 6380 W. Canal St., he said. “HFI currently has two plants and they’re in the process of purchasing the TS Trim plant; (TS Trim) are getting out of headliner business and taking their employees to the Canal Street location,” Ebert said. “(HFI) also does other manufacturing of auto products so when the changeover of lines happens is when they’ll finalize the move over.” HFI, like TS Trim, is an automotive manufac-

See CHIPOTLE, page A2

See TIMING, page A2

Chris Parker/ThisWeek

David Heron, of Nova Terra Farm, talks on his cell phone as he sells onions from the back of his hearse during Wednesday evening’s Canal Winchester Farmers Market on July 6. Herron says the hearse is great for carrying all of his items and keeps them covered when the weather turns bad.

Chipotle gets OK for site design, variance By ANDREW MILLER ThisWeek Community Newspapers Central Ohio’s first new freestanding Chipotle in four years has been approved for Waterloo Crossing in Canal Winchester. Two applications from Chipotle were approved during the July 11 planning and zoning commission meeting: a variance for the location of the parking lot and the site design plan. “We appreciate the input and comments we’ve gotten (from the planning and zoning commission), and RED (Architecture and Planning LLC) has done a good job of incorporating those comments,” CASTO properties development specialist Eric Leibowitz said. In June, the planning commission advised Chipotle that the original park-

ing layout, which circled the proposed building, would not be approved based on the city’s zoning code, which requires that parking be located behind the building. Chipotle representatives said the company’s standard is to circulate traffic one-way around the building; however, examples of other area Chipotle restaurants with have parking that doesn’t circulate this way, were discussed and RED agreed to redesign the site plan. Waterloo Crossing was given approval to standardize monument signs — signs that are detached from the building itself — for all new development along West Waterloo Street. “(Chipotle has) proposed a location for the monument sign, but we’ve been burned by this before,” commission member Mike Vasko said.

A closer look Waterloo Crossing was given approval to standardize monument signs — signs that are detached from the building itself — for all new development along West Waterloo Street.

“As I understand, what you’re showing us here is not the final location (for the monument sign) and we want to know what that location is and that it has a landscaping plan.” The commission unanimously approved both the parking variance and the site design plan with two conditions: that Chipotle provide details for the location of the monument sign

Township trustee bemoans Waterloo bridge project delays By NATE ELLIS

Further, a portion of the local neer’s office) still doesn’t have

ThisWeek Community Newspapers share would be temporarily off- the plans ready.

A Violet Township official recently expressed frustration over a lack of action on a pending bridge project, despite the availability of state funding. Last February, the Ohio Public Works Commission announced that Violet Township had been awarded a $108,000 grant to enhance the Waterloo Road bridge to allow for twoway traffic. As a result, the township and the Fairfield County Engineer’s Office agreed to share the remaining cost of replacing the bridge, which at the time township officials estimated would be approximately $86,000.

set by a $36,000 OPWC loan for the project, which could be paid off at no interest over 30 years. This was all welcome news to the township, which for the better part of eight years has sought to widen the bridge to improve traffic safety and make it easier for emergency response vehicles to pass. However, a growing sense of aggravation has set in, as trustees wait for the county engineer’s office to present design plans for the work. “We finally said we’ll split half of the local share,” Violet Township trustee Terry Dunlap said. “We submitted it and got the public grant, and (the engi-

“That’s the frustrating part.” The bridge is located on the southeast side of Waterloo Road, between Hill and Winchester roads. It crosses a Walnut Creek tributary. According to Violet Township engineer Greg Butcher, recent traffic counts show 2,500 to 3,000 vehicles travel over the bridge each day. That’s up from approximately 1,000 vehicles per day in the late 1990s, he said last February. Increased traffic brought on by the 2004 construction of the interchange at Hill and Diley roads has led to a recurrence of “meetings” of motorists attempting to travel both direc-

Law enforcement and fire (officials) would be greatly delayed and it would create a problem for people south of the (Waterloo Road) bridge. It just seems like the engineer’s promises are hollow and empty.

TERRY DUNLAP —Violet Township trustee

tions on what is essentially a onelane bridge, Butcher said at the time. Adding to Dunlap’s urgency to complete the widening project is the Franklin County Engineer’s Office’s plan to renovate a bridge near the intersection of Winchester and Lithopo-

lis-Winchester roads, in the southeast quadrant of Canal Winchester. That work is expected to take place next year, he said. “If those two bridges are out at the same time, the only ways around them would be to go out to Pickerington Road, onto Winchester Road and come back,”

he said. “Or you would have to take Gender Road or Washington Street into Lithopolis and come back three miles to get back to Winchester Road. “Law enforcement and fire (officials) would be greatly delayed and it would create a problem for people south of the (Waterloo Road) bridge,” Dunlap said. “It just seems like the engineer’s promises are hollow and empty.” That’s not the case, according to Fairfield County chief deputy engineer Jeff Baird. He said his office currently is designing a wider Waterloo Road bridge and hopes to have plans completed within the next month. See BRIDGE, page A2


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