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Meeting to discuss Rome-Hilliard overpass
(by Sandi Latimer, Staff Writer - September 17, 2009)
Residents who would like to see an overpass on the Rome-Hilliard Road as a way to alleviate traffic tie-ups at the railroad crossing are being invited to a meeting Sept. 29.
“The more people who come together to push for an overpass, the more chances we have of getting it,” Jo Ellen Locke told her Westland Area Commission colleagues at their Sept. 16 meeting.
Traffic congestion at the railroad crossing has often been brought up at WAC meetings and Locke, who serves as the Recreation and Parks chairman, has been spearheading the move to get the attention of local and state officials.
The meeting will be hosted by the Chesapeake Farms Block Watch group with a senior planner from the City of Columbus talking about the situation.
The meeting is at 7 p.m. at the Church Next Door, 5755 Feder Road. The public is welcome.
Westland area family center
Locke also noted that the City of Columbus will be offering the sale of bonds approved in an election a year ago. Proceeds of the sale will help with improvements for recreation and parks and perhaps for the construction of two family centers. The Westland area is one of three sites that Recreation and Parks has been looking at for a family center.
The city has purchased the former Blauser property on West Broad Street across from Kroger which would be used for a family center.
Locke expressed concern for that property after learning that the city’s Recreation and Parks office may be looking at another site.
“We’ve worked so hard at getting them to purchase the (Blauser) land and we don’t want them to set us aside,” Locke said. “Don’t we need a place for our kids to go in winter? Maybe it’s time we go to council.”
WAC is one of several area commissions created by Columbus City Council to act as liaison between the city and the neighborhoods.
“There are two new council members,” she said. “I have not met them.”
“They haven’t asked to come out here either,” said WAC president Mike McKay.
“They have to hear us, they have to see us” Locke responded.
Looking out for the library
Another topic addressed at the WAC meeting concerned the Southwest Public Library in the Lincoln Village Plaza Shopping Center.
WAC member Linda Pitts, a librarian, said work in late October will remove the tower in hopes of eliminating the problem of a leaky roof. She said the library will be closed for three days while the work is being done.
“It’s not our money that will be used to repair it,” Pitts said. “The property owner is going to take care of it. They tried to seal it up, but it is apparently a design problem.”
She also said the recent cuts the library instituted has left it with less money with which to purchase materials and she issued an appeal for donations, both monetary and in materials, such as books and magazines.
October meeting
WAC’s next meeting will be Oct. 21 at 6:30 p.m. in the basement meeting room of Doctors Hospital. Franklin County Auditor Clarence Mingo II has been invited to speak at this meeting.
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