Tuesday, July 3, 2012
The city suggests legalizing bow hunting in certain parts of Mentor
Mentor City Manager Kenneth Filipiak presented an ordinance to City Council Monday night that would, if passed, legalize the bow hunting of deer in Mentor. The deer population has been a popular and occasionally divisive subject in the city for awhile. Earlier this year, Council gave the city administration permission to pursue the permits needed to get a Deer Management Plan approved by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. This latest ordinance is only part of the city's ultimate plan and not its totality, Filipiak explained. "This is our first step in reducing the deer population in the city," Filipiak said. Council did not vote on the ordinance Monday night. Instead, they will discuss it more during a work session before their next…
Friday, April 27, 2012
Seven distinguished Mentor graduates form the 16th Alumni Hall of Fame class
Rocco Whalen -- Mentor High graduate, owner and chef of the acclaimed Fahrenheit restaurant in Tremont, and one of the newest inductees into his alma mater's alumni hall of fame -- chatted with senior Jacob Simko as they walked the hallways of Mentor High Thursday morning. "Do you cook?" Whalen asked. Simko humbly replied that he could make some things -- mostly breakfast dishes like French toast and from-scratch hash browns. "That's good," Whalen said without condescension. "What's important is you get the philosophy of cooking." That was just one of the tidbits of wisdom offered by the 2012 Mentor High Alumni Hall of Fame class as they visited their former stomping grounds Thursday. The 16th class of HOF inductees include Whalen, Thomas …
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Local manufacturers are concerned that their workforce is aging and a younger generation is not there to replace them
Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor met with business owners from the Mentor Area Chamber of Commerce for a Q & A Thursday afternoon at Brunner Sanden Deitrick Funeral Home. Many of the business owners who attended were concerned about the manufacturing workforce. Specifically, they worried that the entire younger generation was being dissuaded from pursuing a career in manufacturing. Roger Sustar of Fredon Corp. and Chuck Gehrisch of Roll-Kraft both echoed the same concerns. They said they had well-paid employees with stable jobs but they still perceived manufacturing as an industry with a negative stigma. Christine Blake, the CEO of Cardinal Community Credit Union, said those prejudices are often reinforced by parents who insist their child go to …
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Residents will be asked to repair or replace sidewalk slabs that require maintenance
Mentor City Manager Kenneth Filipiak laid out the city's new sidewalk maintenance program for City Council during a work session Tuesday at City Hall. Mentor will start an annual program this spring in which it will inspect the sidewalks in specific neighborhoods. If sidewalk slabs need repairs in those neighborhoods, the city will contact the appropriate property owners to tell them. Then the property owners can either have the slabs repaired or replaced themselves or reimburse the the city of Mentor for hiring a contractor that will fix it. Mentor's administration has divided the city into 17 zones. This year, the engineering department will inspect the B section of the city's second ward for sidewalks that need repairs. (A map of Zone …
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Council decides to amend its policy toward background checks for people who serve on the city's commissions and committees
- GOVERNMENT
- Jason Lea
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012
City Council looks like it will be changing its policy per background checks for residents who serve on the city's many volunteer committees and commissions. In March 2010, the majority of Council passed an ordinance that required all applicants of all the city's appointed commission and committee members to receive a background check. After a discussion at a work session Tuesday, Council agreed to change it so only those committees where members are paid will require a background check. Those committees include the Planning Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals and Civil Service Commission whose members each receive $50 per meeting. Bucey, along with former Councilman Ronald Micchia, voted against the background check ordinance in 2010. She…
With only one remaining member, the Beautification Committee may become inactive
- GOVERNMENT
- Jason Lea
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012
The Beautification Committee is down to a single member after 10 people left it. "The main reason -- from what I was told -- is many of the members are getting up in years and don't have the energy they used to," City Council President Scott Marn said to his fellow Council members during a work session Tuesday. Marn added that no residents have demonstrated interest in filling the void left by the mass departure. In recent years, the city has had its Parks Department or independent contractors take over responsibilities that used to belong to the Beautification Committee. For example, the city will pay a contractor to care for it's rose garden this year, Mentor City Manager Kenneth Filipiak. Filipiak said paying the contractor was only a "…
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Mentor Law Director Richard Hennig suggested a deer feeding ordinance could be handled as a nuisance report instead of by police
- GOVERNMENT
- Jason Lea
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Wednesday, February 8, 2012
The Mentor City Council and its administration continued its ongoing discussion regarding deer overpopulation during a work session Tuesday afternoon at City Hall. During the session, Mentor Law Director Richard Hennig talked about a proposed city ordinance that would ban feeding deer. Hennig said the biggest concern would be who would enforce the ordinance if it were passed. He suggested that the building department might be able to monitor it as they would any other nuisance report. "This way we can look at the individual situation before we go to court," Hennig said. "It's not the typical situation where someone commits a crime and you run to court to file something." Hennig added that enforcing a deer-feeding ordinance might not be the…
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
A pair of City Council candidates from November were also appointed to the Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals
- GOVERNMENT
- Jason Lea
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Mentor City Council voted Scott Marn as council president and Ray Kirchner as vice president during its first meeting of the year. Kirchner nominated Marn and was seconded by John Krueger. Council members Robert Shiner, Bruce Landeg and Janet Dowling voted for Marn. Carolyn Bucey voted against him, though no one else was nominated. Kirchner was nominated by Krueger and Dowling and elected unanimously. Marn thanked previous Council President Shiner for his years of leadership. "We've been through a lot the last couple of years with the economic recession. Robert Shiner did an excellent job (during that time,") Marn said. Marn added that he looked forward to working with Landeg and Krueger, council's two newest members. "It's always good to …
Friday, July 15, 2011
As part of our election coverage, Mentor Patch will provide profiles of each of the candidates for local office
Editor's Note: As part of Mentor Patch's local election coverage, we will provide profiles of each of the candidates running for office. These profiles will offer biographical and issue-oriented details about each of the candidates to help you, the voters, make more-informed decisions at the ballot box. We also will have a short video of each candidate in which we ask them, "What is the biggest issue facing Mentor and how would you address it?" Stay tuned for more coverage of the election. Name: Janet Dowling Age: 62 Occupation: Vice President/CFO of Lake County Plating Corporation Education: 1967 Graduate of Mentor High School, attended Lakeland Community College and Hiram College Office Sought: At-Large Council seat Elected Experience: …
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Most members of Council offered their stance on "running from cover" during their regular meeting
Several members of Mentor City Council reasserted their position on the issue of "running from cover" during their meeting Tuesday night. Running from cover is when a politician runs for an office when he or she still has time left to serve at his or her current elected position. Councilman Ray Kirchner began the discussion by saying that he was disappointed that Council President Robert Shiner chose to leave a piece of proposed legislation off the agenda that night. The ordinance would put a charter amendment on the November ballot and, if voters approved it, would ban running from cover. Shiner said he left the legislation off the agenda because he knew it would not get the five votes it needed to be placed on the ballot. Then Shiner …
Scott
11:45 am on Saturday, August 11, 2012
Sandra, you are correct that Mentor has cleared and developed most of its vacant land and woodlots needlessly, but my guess is that the neighborhood you live in probably required some land to be cleared when it was built. So it is ok for you to live in a house that took land away from the deer, but not the people who have followed since? The truth about deer is, with no natural predators, woods … more ›