Amherst News-Times, 1998-03-04

              ►tiers send eight to district — Page 6    PUDs planned for area — Page 2
Vmherst News-Times
March 4, 1998
Amherst, Ohio
50 cents
/ offices to move to Park Avenue building
will be displaced for repairs
by GLEN MILLER
News-Times reporter
Cily offices temporarily will be
located in the San Springs building
on Park Avenue pending the completion of a lease agreement this
week.
Beginning in early May, the office building will house city offices
for three or four months while city
hall is repaired and remodeled, ac-
Workers
cording to mayor John Higgins.
Under the lease, the city is expected to pay about $4,900 a month
in rent. Higgins said he still is looking for a meeting facility where cily
council and council committee
meetings can be held in the interim.
The San Springs building and the
S. Main Street office building for
merly occupied by convicted investment counselor Joseph Nemchik
were both being considered as temporary city office sites.
The latter was eliminated from
consideration because it is for sale
rather than rent, the mayor said.
The San Springs building is
owned by a group of doctors and in
vestors, who have been cooperative
and willing to rent it. It was the original site of St. Joseph Catholic
School, he added.
The city must temporarily relocate administrative offices for safety
reasons while the more than
century-old city hall is being fixed.
Cily   council   has   authorized
spending up to $250,000 to repair a
leaky roof and deteriorated bell
tower. Plans also call for remodeling the first floor and the former police station in the basement if there
is sufficient money.
The work is expected to take
three to four months and will begin
in mid-May. The offices probably
will be relocated to the San Springs
building two weeks earlier to enable
workmen to get set up and allow
city workers to get organized in
their temporary offices.
Bul Higgins said he is worried the
first floor and basement remodeling
may be sidetracked by escalating
roof repair costs. The most recent
studies have revealed some wooden
roof   beams   have   begun   to
CONTINUED on page 2
BOE declares
overcrowding
emergency; to
buy modulars
by APRIL MILLER
News-Times reporter
More than one-third of ihe
1998-1999 board of education's permanent improvement money will be
spent on modular classrooms to alleviate overcrowding, and new school
buses.
Three modular units which will
houNC two classes each and three
new buses will be purchased. The
maximum cost of ihe units will be
$170,000, superintendent Howard
Dulmage said. The cost of the two
transit buses and one special needs
bus is $162,166. The entire PI
budget totals $748,502.
The board decided to use modular
classrooms as one solution to the
continuing overcrowding problem
faced by the school district. All-day
kindergarten was also eliminated for
the 1998-1999 school year to help
alleviate the problem. The decision
was made after the board held a spe
cial meeting in January to discuss
ihe overcrowding issue.
At the meeting the board said
they thought the community would
not support the cost of building
more classrooms. Dulmage said he
thought passing a bond with the unstable economy of Lorain Counly
would be almost impossible. Board-
member Sandy Freedman said she
didn't think a bond issue would fail
because people don't wanl to support the schools, but that it was a
money issue.
"When we know there won't be
an economic downturn then., we can
go io the public for a bond issue,"
Dulmage said. "Now we arc unsure
of whal Ford will do, Nordson just
announced ihey are letting people
go and we don'i know what the state
is going lo do about school
funding."
The cosl of modular units is about
one-third the cosl of a real building,
CONTINUED on page 3
Behind his work
Amherst school bus mechanic Norm Miller is nearly hidden by a
huge school bus engine on which he works. Miller said he occa
sionally has to work on a step ladder to reach everything under the
big hood.
Improvements to be paid by higher water rate
by GLEN MILLER
News-Times reporter
Amherst residents shouldn't
think the city is playing an April
Fools Day joke when they get
their April water bills.
It's for real.
Water bills for people within
the cily limits will increase a mi
nimum of 75 cents on April 1 to
help the city pay for much-
needed improvements lo the
municipal water system.
The new rates were announced by mayor John Higgins
at a Feb. 23 cily council meeting. The additional income will
be used to help finance improvements ranging from new fire hydrants to the installation of new
water lines.
The flat rale residents are
charged for the first 3,000 gallons used will increase from
S5.10 to $5.85 monthly, the minimum charge. Rates for an additional 1,000 gallons used over
ihe minimum will be raised from
$2.34 to $2.68.
As they have in the past, Amherst Township residents  will
pay an average of 1.5 percent
more, according to utilities
superinlendenl Don Woodings.
The minimum flat rate
charged them for 3,000 gallons
or less will increase from $7.65
to $8.90. The rate for each additional 1,000 gallons will be
S4.03 more. They now pay
S3.51.
"Given the fact we haven't in
creased rates in such a long time
— and we need to, I think this is
justified and long overdue,"
Higgins said.
The additional funds partially
will be used to help finance water line replacement and pay off
more than $100,000 owed on
previous water line projects.
"One of the problems we have
is we are always mortgaging fu
ture generations quite heavily,"
he added. "This will give us a
chance to pay our fair share as
we go along wilh various
projects,"
The increase, the first in the
last 16 years, will help pay for a
host of projects, including the
installation of at least 80 new
CONTINUED on page 2
APD patrol force
increased by two
with full-time,
part-time officers
You might say Gary Fernandez
wears two hats, figuratively bul nol
literally.
Not only is he Amherst's newest
patrolman, he also tries lo find lime
to do some substitute teaching al
Marion L. Steele High School.
A full-lime or substitute teacher
for seven years, Fernandez decided
nearly a year and a half ago that becoming a cop would be a more fulfilling career.
He also decided the best place to
wear a badge would be in Amherst,
his hometown. It might give him the
chance to continue substitute leaching in the future and keep him near
his family and friends.
Last fall he became a part-time
officer bul continued substituting.
Little did he realize he would soon
become a full-time addition to the
department, an extra patrolman
whose presence has been sought by
chief William Hall for more lhan a
year.
Fernandez was in ihe midst of a
14-week on-the-job training program when Hall offered him the job.
He was sworn in on Valentine's
Day.
Since then, his part-time officer's
job has been filled by Manny Roman, 24, of LaGrange.
"It's something I've dreamed of
since I was a child " Roman said. "I
don't like babysitting inmates, but it
gives me a look into the other side
of law enforcement"
Ihe chance lo become a part-time
officer hasn't been a drastic career
change for him. He already wears a
Manny Roman
badge as a corrections otiicer at (he
Lorain Correctional Institution, one
of the three state prisons located
near Grafton.
Roman said he formerly served as
a pan-lime patrolman on the La-
Grange police department before
"taking a step up" to Amheist.
The decision to hire additional
manpower came at a good lime.
Three officers are recovering from
CONTINUED on page 11
New patrolman Gary Fernandez checks out his patrol,
police cruiser as he prepares to head out on