Amherst News-Times, 2001-12-05

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Amherst News-Time
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1
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2001
AMHERST, OHIO
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City's fiscal woes may be solved for '0
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by ERIK YORKE
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News-Times reporter
As the end of the fiscal year ap-
1 proaches, city officials have been
I scrambling to balance the budget for
next year.
Facing a sizeable deficit projection, the city was bailed out late last
week after an error was discovered
in how the city pays tax refunds to
its residents.
Error in refund account will help
City auditor Diane Eswine projected a $287,005 budget deficit to
city council at the Nov. 19 council
committee meeting and presented a
recommendation that she felt would
serve as a short-term solution.
She explained that there are two
categories of income taxpayers in
Amherst. The first category is com
prised of Amherst business owners,
city workers and those who are not
taxed by the cities in which they
work. Those residents pay a total of
l.S percent of their income in tax.
Eswine explained that the one percent and 0.5 percent in that income
tax category are split, with one percent going to both the city's general
fund and to street maintenance and
the remaining 0.5 percent going to
street improvement.
Of that one percent, 62 percent
goes to the city's general fund, from
which the city pays all of its accounts, and 38 percent goes to street
maintenance.
The second income tax category
is comprised of those Amherst residents who work and pay taxes in
other communities. They pay only
0.5 percent of their income to Amherst, all of which goes to street improvement. The other one percent
that they would pay if they were in
tax category one is forgiven because
they pay taxes in the cities in which
they work. _, J
Eswine pointed out to council that
68 percent of all the city's tax income goes, in way or another, to
streets with only 32 percent going to
the general fund. Eswine recommended to council that they take the
0.5 percent paid by those in tax
category two and move it to the gen-
eral fund. This, she said, would help
to eliminate the deficit for this year,
but warned that the city would still
CONTINUED on page 8
1
HOLIDAY
HAPPENINGS
Christmas in the Village
staged Dec. 16 by AHS
The Amherst Historical Soceity will host Christmas in the Village, a holiday open house at the Sandstone Museum Center on
Sunday, Dec. 16.
The public is invited to visit the restored sandstone buildings,
which will be decorated for the holiday season.
Refreshments will be served at the Harris-Dute House, the
Greek Revival home decorated for the Christmas season, from 2-4
p.m.
Singing of holiday carols will be at the St. George Chapel at 4
p.m. with Mary Miller playing the antique pump organ at the
chapel.
There is no admission fee, but donations to the historical society are welcome.
Community Chorus
to stage annual concert
The Amherat Community Chorus will perform its annual holiday concert on Sunday, Dec. 16, at 2:30 p.m. in the social hall at
Sl Joseph Church.
This year's concert features "Gloria" by Vivaldi and "A Season
of Carols.''
Tickets are available for this event at the door. Prices are $4
for adults, $3 for senior citizens, $2 for students, and those under
five years old will be admitted free. For more information about
the event, call 988-7396.
Comet Christmas shop
has family holiday buys
The Christmas shop at Comet Corner at the high school has
gifts on sale for Amherst students, staff, alumni and fans. The
store stocks children's and adults' sizes in clothes.
Comet Comer also has umbrellas, travel mugs, backpacks,
license plate frames and even a wooden cut out of the high
school
The shop is open on school days from 7:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.,
or on Wednesday evenings from 6-8 pjn. Visitors should stop in
the high school office to sign in and office personnel will direct
them to the Comet Comer.
Call 988-5339 for mare information during store hours. This
store is operated by PTO volunteers and all proceeds from sales
benefit the school.
It's starting
to kffiff a lot
like Christmas
At right, members of Brownie
Troop 932 Rebecca Toth (left)
and Megan Molnar take a few
moments to tell Santa Claus
what they want for Christmas.
Santa was in attendance last
weekend at the old post office
as part of the annual "Trees,
Trains and Treats" event.
Above, Angela Cecil holds her
daughter Christy, 1, as they observe the train display. Cecil
was also accompanied by her
sons Matthew, 4 and Chad, 2
last weekend.
Woman's folk artwork
will hang from Ohio's
top tree at Taft house
by ERIK YORKE
Newt-Times reporter
There will be a touch of
Amherst on the Christmas
tree at Governor Robert Tift's
residence this year.
As a result of First Lady
Hope Tift's Treasures For
The Tree contest, a
U*__in_»-style decorative egg
ornament crafted by Amherat
resident Beverly Boiwka will
hang on the Governor's tree
and become • pernuneat fix-
turetn the Governor's holiday
decoration collection.
Boiwka. who has been
craftkt *s elaborately colored eg* far over 20 years,
aaM th* she entered the eon*
test because a friend of hers
from the Ohio Egg Artist's
Guild to which titey both belong won last year.
"I got the letter and was
real surprised," Boiwka said
of her acceptance letter.
She said that she originally
became interested in making
the ornamental eggs because
she wanted to leam a bit about her husband, Steve's Ukrainian heritage. Her husband,
bom in Germany in a labor
camp during World War II,
was the son of parents who
were Ukrainian Orthodox in
faith. They moved to the United Stales after the war and
faced "a lot of tough daws."
Beverly Boiwka said.
Boiwka, who attends • Uk
rainian Orthodox church in
Lorain with her husband of
28 years, said that the opportunity to leam the art of
making decorative eggs came
up as a church announcement.
She said that she look a class
and, for about 10 yean, only
made the .eggs once in a
while, usually around Easter.
1 didn't do a whole lot
with it for 10 yean or so,"
Boiwka said. Then gradually,
it's taken over."
Boiwka said that she attends about seven craft shows
during the holiday season and
then three or four more around Easter. That includes an
show on Mat Sunday
' ia Akron comprised
CONTINUED on
Beverly Boiwka shows off her many and
various decorated Ukrainian style egg ornaments. One of Bolwka'a ornaments was
*y
to be added to the permanent hot-
deoortfton colectkMr) at the Ohio Oovt^