Council vote favors store

Council and residents have been divided over the store's plans to come here.
& lt;a href=mailto:jgoodwin@vindy.com & gt;By JOHN W. GOODWIN JR & lt;/a & gt;.
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
POLAND -- Walgreens pharmacy has moved a step closer to locating a store here soon.
Village council voted earlier this week to rescind an ordinance that would have blocked the store from building here without the blessing of village council. Several council members have said they are against the store's opening here.
Earlier this year, Walgreens submitted plans to village officials for a building at McKinley Way (U.S. Route 224) and North Main Street (state Route 170). The area is zoned village center commercial with a 4,000-square-foot maximum for retail businesses. The planned Walgreens would be nearly four times that size.
Councilman Joe Mazur said the building would be the catalyst the village needs with a nice two-story facility that would have the appearance of four small store fronts from the outside.
Walgreens applied for and was granted, in a 4-1 vote, a variance from the zoning appeals board to build the larger building.
Ordinance targeted Walgreens
Village council, one day before Walgreens made its case to the appeals board, passed an emergency ordinance stating that any decision made by the zoning appeals board in regard to Walgreens would have to be approved by council. That ordinance has been rescinded.
Mazur and Christine Yash voted to rescind, and Bill Dunnavant abstained. Al Lind and Marc Cossette voted not to rescind the ordinance. Bob Limmer is on vacation and did not vote at all, leaving Mayor Ruth Wilkes to cast the deciding vote on rescinding the ordinance.
According to Mazur, council decided to make a motion to rescind the ordinance after village solicitor Damian DeGenova made that recommendation to council. DeGenova said the ordinance was legitimate, but council gave it three readings, when it should have waived the three readings in order to pass it as an emergency. Emergency passage enable ordinances to take effect immediately.
Mark Gribben of the Ohio Attorney General's office would not comment directly about the Walgreens situation, but had told The Vindicator that ordinances tailored to specific businesses have a hard time standing up in court. He said such ordinances must be more broad and apply to everyone or every type of business.
Project's future
Mazur said the project will now likely move forward on the approval of the appeals board.
"In my view we acted prudently and in the best interest of the village of Poland," he said. "Now I hope all those who are for or against this project can work together."
Walgreens, Mazur said, will now have to go before the architectural review board for approval -- a board that also includes Councilman Al Lind. Lind has been adamantly opposed to the Walgreens store's locating here. He said Thursday that as a member of the board, he will treat Walgreens as any other issue before him but that he would excuse himself from the vote if the other board members want that.
& lt;a href=mailto:jgoodwin@vindy.com & gt;jgoodwin@vindy.com & lt;/a & gt;