COLUMBIANA Councilman Leonard defends absence during rezoning vote

A grocery store was proposed for the residential area along state Route 14.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
COLUMBIANA -- Councilman Don Leonard defended his absence at the Nov. 20 council meeting.
Leonard read a statement at Tuesday's council meeting that he was in Florida on vacation and did not appreciate comments during his absence that he skipped the meeting to change the vote on a rezoning measure.
Leonard's absence at that meeting foiled a bid to rezone a section of state Route 14 from residential to commercial. The measure received three "yes" votes and two "no" votes, but it was still scrapped because council rules require at least four "yes" votes for passage.
Voted 'no:' Leonard voted against the rezoning when it was introduced at council's Nov. 6 meeting for the first of two required readings.
The measure passed the first reading because Leonard's "no" vote resulted in a 3-3 council deadlock and Mayor Lowell Schloneger cast the tie-breaker in favor of it.
At the Nov. 20 meeting, council members stuck to the votes they cast Nov. 6. For the rezoning measure to come before council again, it must be resubmitted.
Yearly vacation: Leonard said that he goes to Florida every year during Thanksgiving week, and that the council meetings in those weeks are the only two meetings he has missed in his two years on council.
He said he filed a report with the police that he would be gone, and when he started his council term two years ago he informed everyone he would be gone Thanksgiving week every year.
He said criticism of his absence was an attack on his integrity.
Schloneger said more than one person at a previous meeting overheard Leonard stating when the zone change was being discussed that he would not attend the meeting at which the vote was required.
"Don't say what you don't mean," Schloneger told Leonard.
Schloneger and Councilwoman Joyce Allcorn said Leonard did not tell Schloneger or City Manager Keith Chamberlin before the meeting that he would not be there.
Several people who own houses on the property in question want it rezoned to commercial so they can sell their houses.
Business plans: Businessman Henry Nemenz wants to buy the property -- on the south side of state Route 14, east of McDonald's -- to build a grocery store on the land, which is part of a growing commercial strip.
But some Seventh Street residents who live near the proposed grocery store object to the rezoning, saying they don't want the enterprise near their homes.