Progress Report
City Policies
Council had a first reading of an ordinance adopting a policy governing the use and marking of city-owned vehicles. That ordinance will be voted on—and I assume approved—in mid-January, after it’s had three readings.
Labor Contracts
The city finally reached an agreement with the members of the city’s Service Department---months after labor contracts covering other city employees were approved. Councilman Ed Hargate cast the sole “Nay” vote. As is typical with Hargate, he voted no without stating, on the record, what his objections and concerns were. He did not bother to explain, to his peers or members of the public, why he chose to vote no on this particular labor contract after approving all of the other ones.
Economic Development Committee
Last month Council passed an ordinance restoring resident participation in the city’s Economic Development Committee. Selected residents will serve along with Mayor Coleman’s picks for that Committee---Police Chief Cook, Fire Chief Turner and Finance Director Anthony Ianiro. Council hoped to wrap up the interview process last week, but the last three interested candidates were unavailable. The new Committee should be in place by early January.
Speaking of economic development....
Giant Eagle’s Proposal for the Catalano’s property
After successfully blocking a plan to lease the current Catalano’s building for use as a Marc’s store, Giant Eagle came to council on December 14t with its own proposal for the property. Although the building looks quite large to many of us, the Catalano’s building and property is actually undersized compared to most modern-day grocery stores. Giant Eagle proposes to demolish the current building and treat the property as if it were two different parcels. The front parcel, along Wilson Mills Road, would have 8 “Get-Go” gas pumps, an attended car wash, and a large combination convenience store/cafe. The cafe would offer food items (to eat on premises and “to go”) and free wireless internet access. A small building housing several small retail businesses will be constructed in the rear portion (south end) of the parcel.
The uses proposed by Giant Eagle are consistent with what has historically existed at the Bishop/Wilson Mills intersection area: gas stations; grocery stores; and business offices.
I saw the preliminary drawing of the proposed Giant Eagle Convenience Store/Cafe and was frankly quite surprised at how nice it looked---it is not your typical shabby looking, garish gas station store. It looks like an upscale grocery store, only in miniature.
Obviously a lot more talking and thinking will be required, but I sure am tired (after 4 years) of seeing the empty Catalano’s lot. Giant Eagle is a well-established and reputable company, they have already successfully test-marketed their proposed convenience store-cafe concept in Pittsburgh, and it would be a total crap shoot as to what kind of business would move in if Giant Eagle decided to sell the property to someone else. Since Giant Eagle needs a zoning change (to put the gas pumps in), the city will have some say over how the property is developed. That won’t be the case if a business comes in that meets general business zoning requirements.
Here are a couple of comments relating to Giant Eagle’s proposal:
- “To have a gas station across the street (from my home) is unthinkable.” Spoken by a homeowner who lives on the north side of Wilson Mills, next to the Brown-Flynn office, close to where the former Ron’s Shell gas station stood.
- “This is not the kind of development I’d like to see in this area. The proposal is uninspiring. “ Councilman Ed Hargate.
- “I think they (Giant Eagle) brought us a Christmas present. It’s got to be better than what we have now. Do it right and everybody will be proud of it.” Former Mayor Tom Hughes
The Gas Well Committee
The Gas Well Committee (GWC) met for the first time after walking through the park. Most of the members seemed to already have selected some potential drilling sites---all except Kennelwood Drive resident David Lees. Lees asked, “Are we not going to address safety issues at all? The whole reason the mayor and council changed their mind (about drilling in the park) was the accident in Bainbridge."Former Mayor Fran Hogg, who personally wrote the successful ODNR grant application that resulted in the city being able to add over 10 acres to the park in 1997, shared her institutional knowledge with the GWC.
Hogg told the GWC that that not only could the ODNR land not be disturbed as a matter of law, but the protection given to that land also applied to an additional 19 acres added to the west side of the park in 1995. She explained:
(1) the ODNR grant application stated that the reason the city sought grant money from the state was was not only to purchase the additional 10 acres of land but to protect and preserve 19 pristine wooded acres and wetlands that had been added to the west side of the park in 1995;
(2) those 19 acres were purchased using city-assessed "impact fees" paid by developers;
(3) the impact fees were challenged by a building industry group in court, with the result that the money could only be used for park purposes and to expand the park; and
(4) the city could be liable to refund the "impact fee" money used to buy the 19 acres if that land was used for commercial purposes---i.e., to drill revenue-generating gas wells.
One thing that I found a bit disconcerting---It became apparent during the meeting that the schematic map of the park provided by Brian Mader of the City Engineer’s Office was not to scale and did not show the location of the many county-identified wetlands in the park. Why the GWC was not provided with a more useful and informative map is beyond me.The GWC will meet again in early January. Council President Scott Mills promised to invite NEOGAP (the North east Ohio Gas Accountability Project) to come and discuss safety issues with the Committee. He also promised that the GWC would receive a more detailed map (to scale) before the next meeting.
