Salem officials to scrutinize city’s growth plan

By D.a. Wilkinson

The plan is for the city to achieve sustainable growth.

SALEM — City officials must take a formal look at Salem’s Comprehensive Plan before it can be adopted by city council.

Representatives of Salem Area Chamber of Commerce and Ohio State University presented the plan to council’s committee of the whole Tuesday.

Pat Morrissey, who heads the city planning department, said that the planning commission will have to meet to decide whether to recommend that council adopt it.

Passage may be likely. First Ward Councilman David Nestic, who heads council’s economic development committee, said the Salem Area Industrial Development Committee will be revived.

SAIDC had been used as an economic development tool decades ago but had become defunct. It will be used as the nonprofit organization that could handle purchases and other activities for development.

The biggest project involving the city now is Mayor Jerry Wolford’s goal to buy about 170 acres in Green Township in Mahoning County. The cost would be $1 million, which the city does not presently have.

Dan Moore, who headed the plan project, said it is 180 pages long.

“There was a lot of talking in the community,” he said.

The goal is to create “sustainable growth” in the community, he said.

One of the original issues — blighted housing — is being addressed by the administration, which received grant funds to tear structures down, he noted.

The plan covers economic development, education, parks and recreation, infrastructure, housing, community service and values, and historic properties.

It was four years in the making, in part because the city’s bicentennial in 2006 involved almost every part of the community.

Myra Moss and Bill Grunkemeyer, both of the Ohio State University Extension Office, helped shape the plan.

Moss told council, “It truly is a community plan. That can’t be understated.”

The goal is to sustain growth, as Salem, and the rest of the country, moves into what Grunkemeyer called “the new economy.”

Tuesday night’s presentation was short on specifics, but one example of what the plan hopes to achieve — better city-school district ties — is that Thomas Bratton, who was recently named the new superintendent of Salem schools, will be working with the community.

Audrey Null, chamber executive director, noted that the schools recently implemented the Junior Achievement program to bring youths and the community together.

wilkinson@vindy.com