July 7, 2011
Group presses for school spending cuts Taxpayers for Westerville Schools urges 15-percent, across-the-board employee pay cut By JENNIFER NESBITT ThisWeek Community Newspapers
Westerville residents have formed a new group to lobby the Westerville City School District for spending cuts and lower taxes. Taxpayers for Westerville Schools, which is backed by the Westerville Tea Party, the Westerville 9.12 Project, Levy-
Facts.com and Common Sense for Westerville Schools, presented a cost-cutting plan to the Westerville school board at its June 27 meeting. The largest component of the group’s plan called for cutting all employees’pay by 15 percent, which the group said would bring salaries in line with private-sector salaries and would save the district more than $20 million a year.
The plan also calls for adopting the same style of health care benefits given to New Albany school employees, cutting the practice of paying pension contributions for administrators, having employees pay half of their dental insurance premiums, reducing department and building budgets and reducing English-as-aSecond-Language outreach efforts. Those measures, based on the group’s
figures, would save the district more than $6.2 million in the next school year. The group also recommended freezing all expenditures through fiscal year 2015. “We just kept digging down deeper, and we came to the conclusion that we need to step up as taxpayers and try to talk to the school board about cutting their expenses,” said Mike Jones, Taxpayers
for Westerville Schools spokesman. “We need somebody that’s going to go out there and challenge the school board and taxpayers.” Jones said he’s been working with representatives of LevyFacts.com for about a year, but that group focuses solely on posting district financial information onSee TAXPAYERS GROUP, page A6
St. Ann’s Project GRACE
Ground broken on $110-million expansion By JENNIFER NESBITT
ices, including open-heart sur-
ThisWeek Community Newspapers gery; the new 111,230-square-
Mount Carmel broke ground June 30 on what its officials called the largest project ever undertaken by the health system — a $110-million expansion at St. Ann’s Hospital. The expansion includes the addition of a three-tier parking garage, a new two-story main entrance that will reorient the hospital toward Schrock Road, a four-story patient tower and the expansion of the hospital’s foodservice area and energy plant. The expansion will allow for more intense cardiovascular serv-
foot tower will include a cardiovascular intensive care unit; four operating rooms, with two dedicated to cardiovascular surgery; catheterization labs; an emergency-room chest-pain unit; and 60 beds for cardiovascular patients. However, the expansion isn’t just about being able to offer additional cardiovascular services, Mount Carmel CEO Claus von Zychlin said. “It is much more than that,” he said. “We are elevating St. See ST. ANN’S, page A2 By Eric George/ThisWeek
Music & Arts Festival
Bishop Frederick Campbell delivers the homily during the Mass of Dedication for St. Paul the Apostle Church in Westerville on June 29.
130-plus artists Seven-year project to fill Heritage Park $21.5M St. Paul church dedicated By JENNIFER NESBITT ThisWeek Community Newspapers
Artists and their goods will line the paths of Heritage Park, 60 N. Cleveland Ave., and live music will fill the air July 9 and 10 for the 37th annual Westerville Area Chamber of Commerce Music and Arts Festival. This year’s festival will run from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. July 9 and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 10. There is a $1 admission charge for anyone older than 16. The festival, which attracted 18,000 people last year, will fea-
ture more than 130 artists. Local artists will once again be featured in the “Westerville Walkway” area. “We’ve got some very popular returning vendors, some new vendors with some exciting arts and crafts to share, and we’re just going to keep building on the excitement and fun of past years,” said Lindsay Brown, Westerville Area Chamber of Commerce events coordinator. All artists who are granted spaces at the festival are reviewed
By MEREDITH HEAGNEY The Columbus Dispatch The congregation of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church celebrated its new church last week with pomp, ceremony and reverence. The lengthy dedication ceremony on June 29 included a Mass led by Bishop Frederick F. Campbell of the Diocese of Columbus. Construction of the new church began in February 2010 as part of a larger, sevenyear project that includes an activity center and athletic fields and costs an estimated
$21.5 million. Parishioners have pledged nearly $14 million — $11million of which has been received — and the Catholic Diocese of Columbus will contribute a loan for about $5 million. The rest of the money comes from parish reserves. The church has floors made of limestone from Israel, solid red-oak pews and a 90foot-tall ceiling painted to resemble the heavens. As they admire their new church, which seats 1,400, members can take satisfaction in knowing they pulled off a rare feat: Building a new church during a recession.
With tightened budgets and crumbling investments, many churches have found construction projects to be an impossible luxury. Members have less money to donate, and loans are harder to secure. Westerville was not hit as hard as some other places by the bad economy, said the Rev. Charlie Klinger, pastor, though some of the church’s 4,400 families are certainly struggling. On the flip side, one family donated $500,000 as a match challenge to the congregation. See ST. PAUL, page A2
See ARTS, page A6
Muha wins national Jefferson Award By JENNIFER NESBITT ThisWeek Community Newspapers
‘History Exhumed!’
By Eric George/ThisWeek
Ilene Evans portrays Harriet Tubman as part of the Westerville Visitors & Convention Bureau’s “History Exhumed!” event July 3 at Heritage Park. The event, part of the city’s commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, included live entertainment, concessions, old-fashioned games for children and information on Civil War history. “History Exhumed!” was part of the Ohio Humanities Council’s Ohio Chautauqua, a five-day adult-education event that combines living history, music and entertainment, education, theater and audience interaction.
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Along with famous people such as Marlo Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Westerville resident Rachel Muha was recognized in Washington, D.C., June 21 for her community service. Muha was one of 18 people honored with a Jefferson Award, described as the “Nobel Prize for Public Service.” Specifically, she was one of five people given the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award, meant to honor “unsung heroes.” She was one of five people honored with a central Ohio Jefferson Award in April. Muha is the founder of The Brian Muha Foundation, which provides college scholarships and runs local programs for children from underprivileged homes, including the Run the Race Club, an after-school and summer program for inner-city children; and Ready, Set, Race, a program for
children ages 3 to 5 aimed at helping them associate learning with positive attention. The foundation also oper- Rachel Muha ates Fresh Food, a program that provides the children with fresh, nutritious food. All of the work Muha does is in memory of her son, Brian, a graduate of St. Paul School and St. Charles Preparatory Academy. Brian Muha, then 19, was finishing his freshman year at Franciscan University in Steubenville in 1999 when two robbers randomly broke into his house and assaulted and murdered him and a friend. Rachel Muha publicly forgave her son’s killers, who are serving life sentences in prison. She set out to create a legacy in his name. Brian Muha was an active volunteer and gave up his scholarship
to Franciscan University so that someone who needed it more could have it. His mother, supported by her family, started The Brian Muha Foundation to honor his volunteerism and generosity. Rachel Muha said she chose to start a program for underprivileged children in the inner city because she knew her son’s killers had grown up in similar situations. The Run the Race Club began as a one-day-a-week program. One child showed up the first day the program was open, she said. The program now operates five days a week in a former Columbus recreation center in Franklinton, serving between 40 and 45 children a day. It also provides outreach, such as providing food, rent or money for utility bills, to the children’s families. The Brian Muha Foundation programs are staffed almost exclusively by volunteers and funded through donations. For more information, visit www.brianmuhafoundation.org.
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