Betterment members reinstate charter, share upcoming events

By Sarah Einselen

Inquirer Reporter

The Galion Area Bet­ter­ment Com­mis­sion voted to rein­state its char­ter at its Feb. 6 meet­ing in the Galion Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal cafe­te­ria con­fer­ence room. It had expired because the address of the statu­tory agent was out of date, so renewal paper­work never got to the Commission.

The Com­mis­sion appointed Joe Kleinknecht to be the statu­tory agent, since he’s the pres­i­dent of the Cham­ber of Com­merce. New paper­work will be filed with the Ohio Sec­re­tary of State’s office to rein­state the char­ter and update the name and address of the statu­tory agent.

Nom­i­na­tions are being accepted for the Commission’s Spe­cial Ser­vice Awards, includ­ing cit­i­zen of the year, orga­ni­za­tion of the year and human­i­tar­ian of the year. Eli­gi­ble can­di­dates have to live or work in the Galion area, or for orga­ni­za­tions, be based in the area.

Nom­i­na­tion forms will be avail­able at the Cham­ber of Com­merce, the Galion Pub­lic Library, the Com­mu­nity Center-YMCA and the main office of Galion High School. Com­pleted nom­i­na­tions will be accepted at those loca­tions through 4 p.m. March 16. Award win­ners will be rec­og­nized at the Commission’s Awards Break­fast to be held on April 10 at the Galion Free Methodist Church’s activ­ity center.

Com­mis­sion mem­bers also updated each other about the activ­i­ties their orga­ni­za­tions are plan­ning for the month.

The Craw­ford County Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment Part­ner­ship is chang­ing its name to the Craw­ford County Part­ner­ship for Edu­ca­tion and Eco­nomic Devel­op­ment, reflect­ing another change. It recently switched from being a 501©6 orga­ni­za­tion, sup­ported by its mem­bers, to a 501©3 non­profit orga­ni­za­tion that can accept char­i­ta­ble con­tri­bu­tions, accord­ing to Part­ner­ship direc­tor Dave Williamson.

The Galion Com­mu­nity The­atre’s upcom­ing pro­duc­tion, “Red, White and Tuna,” will open Feb. 17. Cur­tain time for that show and the shows on Feb. 18, 24 and 25 is 8 p.m. A 2 p.m. mati­nee to con­clude the show’s run will be pre­sented on Feb. 26.

GCT rep­re­sen­ta­tive Elaine Hot­ten­roth also reported that GCT is orga­niz­ing a children’s book drive to sup­port Galion native Meg Plum­mer, who is now teach­ing in a poverty-stricken town in Ken­tucky. The­atre­go­ers can donate books to go to the chil­dren attend­ing River­side Chris­t­ian School in Lost Creek, Ky., many of whom have no books in their homes.

Galion city man­ager Gene Toy told the Com­mis­sion he had fielded some com­plaints on the place­ment of polit­i­cal signs in yards. Signs can­not be in the “devil’s strip” or “tree lawn,” between the side­walk and the road, and can­not be placed in a pub­lic dri­ve­way. They have to stay on pri­vate property.

Toy also said the city and Med­Flight were mak­ing progress on a prop­erty use agree­ment for leas­ing the house and one of the hangars at the munic­i­pal airport.

The Cham­ber of Com­merce’s ninth annual eco­nomic devel­op­ment update and fore­cast break­fast will be held at 7:30 a.m. March 13 at the Galion Free Methodist Church Chris­t­ian Life Cen­ter, 683 Port­land Way N. Reser­va­tions may be made by call­ing the Cham­ber at (419) 468‑7737.

The Center-Y is in its sixth week of a seven-week ses­sion and is adding spin­ning and cycling classes in response to heavy inter­est. Mem­ber­ship sign-ups came at a good pace over the last three months, which Center-Y direc­tor Terry Grib­ble took as a sign of an improv­ing econ­omy. The Center-Y also launched its new web­site to con­form to national YMCA branding.

Craw­ford County was the only county to vol­un­teer to pilot a new pro­gram to screen state food assis­tance (food stamps) appli­cants for drug abuse, accord­ing to county com­mis­sioner Doug Weisenauer.

The com­mis­sion­ers met with Ohio Gov. John Kasich in Sep­tem­ber to dis­cuss the county’s drug abuse prob­lem. After that, a state audit of 10 coun­ties, includ­ing Craw­ford County, found that no follow-up was tak­ing place to address abuse of food assis­tance. The county is involved in devel­op­ing reg­u­la­tions to rein in the abuse.

The Black Fork wind energy project was approved by the state, Weise­nauer said, and pre­lim­i­nary work will likely start this sum­mer. The project won’t get fully under way until next year.

The Galion Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal Aux­il­iary held a jew­elry sale Feb. 7. It will also hold a book fair in March, a uni­form sale in May, a mum sale in Sep­tem­ber and a cookie walk in Novem­ber, all as fundrais­ers. The Auxiliary’s annual meet­ing and birth­day bash will be held in April, when out­stand­ing junior and senior vol­un­teers will also be rec­og­nized. The Schwann’s frozen food sale is being put on hold for now.

Flu hasn’t been an issue this year, accord­ing to city health com­mis­sioner Stephen Novack. The Board of Health will meet at 7:30 a.m. Feb. 14 in the city annex. An open town hall meet­ing and mod­er­ated pub­lic dis­cus­sion will be held April 19 at Galion High School. That meet­ing will be spon­sored by the Opi­ates Task Force and will facil­i­tate com­mu­nity dis­cus­sion about drug abuse.

Don Trigg of the Galion Min­is­te­r­ial Asso­ci­a­tion said that area Lenten ser­vices would begin soon. The first will be a 7 p.m. ser­vice on Feb. 26 at First Pres­by­ter­ian Church, 240 S. Mar­ket St., at which Joel Sanchez will speak.

The Galion Pub­lic Library’s “Food for Fines” drive is offer­ing patrons a dol­lar off fines for bring­ing in non-perishable food items. The food is being donated to the Com­mu­nity Action Center’s food bank.

Upcom­ing library pro­grams include a hands-on doc­u­ments work­shop on Feb. 13, a children’s choco­late party on Feb. 18, a his­tor­i­cal reen­ac­tor por­tray­ing George Wash­ing­ton on Feb. 20, the sec­ond annual Wii Bowl­ing tour­na­ment on Feb. 25 and a Dr. Seuss birth­day party on March 3.

The Galion Kiwa­nis Club held a suc­cess­ful chili fundraiser, accord­ing to Vicki Eck­en­rod, club rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Commission.

The school’s booster club has almost obtained is bingo license, reported school super­in­ten­dent Kathy Jen­ney. School admin­is­tra­tion is inter­view­ing can­di­dates for cri­te­ria archi­tect ser­vices for design-building of the pro­posed bus garage. Stu­dents are get­ting school e-mail addresses to make online assign­ment sub­mis­sion easier.

Jen­ney was grate­ful to have been able to pro­vide office space on cam­pus to a Com­mu­nity Coun­sel­ing coun­selor so stu­dents with emo­tional prob­lems and no trans­porta­tion could still receive help.

The schools are work­ing on options for join­ing a sports league after the North Cen­tral Con­fer­ence breaks up. Pos­si­bil­i­ties for Galion are the North­ern Ohio League, the Ohio Car­di­nal Con­fer­ence, the Mid-Ohio Ath­letic Con­fer­ence or form its own league with other schools left behind from the cur­rent league’s breakup.

The Galion Rotary Club is pilot­ing an asso­ciate mem­ber­ship pro­gram so com­mu­nity vol­un­teers can receive the ben­e­fits of Rotary mem­ber­ship with­out hav­ing to attend meet­ings. Asso­ciate mem­bers may have to pay some dues but would not have vot­ing priv­i­leges. With an asso­ciate mem­ber­ship, those who want to par­tic­i­pate in one or another of the Rotary com­mu­nity ser­vice projects can do so with­out hav­ing to attend required Rotary meetings.

The Golden Age Cen­ter will hold its Swiss steak din­ner fundraiser on Feb. 17. RSVP is required and may be made by call­ing the Cen­ter at (419) 468‑5152.

The Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion will hold its annual meet­ing at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 20 at Var­sity Grille. Asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tive Joe Kleinknecht said the orga­ni­za­tion needed more alumni to join.

Ohio Heart­land Com­mu­nity Action Coali­tion direc­tor Jill Lee said the food pantry still served 200–300 peo­ple each month and had entered the “cri­sis sea­son” for heat assis­tance, though peo­ple haven’t needed as much assis­tance as usual because the weather has been mild. The back­pack pro­gram, pro­vid­ing 110 chil­dren with food over each week­end, received a Best Prac­tice award from the Ohio Asso­ci­a­tion of Com­mu­nity Action Agencies.

The Galion Area Bet­ter­ment Com­mis­sion will hold its next reg­u­lar meet­ing at noon on Mon­day, March 5, in the Galion Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal small din­ing room.

Posted by Sarah Einselen on Feb 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.