ThisWeek Grandview 3/17

Page 1

March 17, 2011

Pierce Field

Final plan for project near completion By ALAN FROMAN ThisWeek Community Newspapers

The architectural firm working with the city of Grandview Heights on the design for a new multi-purpose building at Pierce Field is nearing completion of a final plan with cost estimates for the project.

Meyers and Associates has completed a preliminary design, but a few issues must still be resolved before the final plan is presented, parks and recreation director Sean Robey said. “We’re settling in on what the building is going to look like,” Robey said. The multi-purpose building will include a concession stand, storage facili-

ties and restrooms, and will replace the three buildings currently at the park, he said. Those buildings, all several decades old and not up to code, will be demolished. The new building will be located “more or less where the current restroom building sits, in the north central area of the park,” Robey said. “It will be between

the two existing ball diamonds.” One of the major issues still to be resolved is where the Ox Roast pit will be located, he said. “Where it is now would not work because it would be quite a haul for the (Bobcat) Boosters to carry all that beef from the pit to the new building, where they prepare and sell it during the Ox

Roast,” Robey said. The original idea was to move the pit just to the east of the new building, behind the backstop of the ball diamond, he said. Another possibility under consideration is to place the pit to the northwest of See PIERCE, page A2

Revisions to calendar for next school year adopted

FUN AT THE LIBRARY

By LISA AURAND ThisWeek Community Newspapers

By Andrea Kjerrumgaard/ThisWeek

Caleb Cotton, 4, left, and Avery Donnelly, 2, take seats in the front of the room for the telling of Two Little Blackbirds during a Music and Movement program at the Grandview Heights Public Library on March 14. The library will hold a Music in the Atrium event tonight (March 17) at 7 p.m. to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. The event features Celtic guitarist John Sherman.

Science Olympiad team qualifies for state By ALAN FROMAN ThisWeek Community Newspapers

The Grandview Heights Middle School Science Olympiad team finished first Saturday in the regional tournament it hosted. The victory qualifies the team for the state tournament on April 30 at Ohio State University. The middle school Science Olympiad features 23 events involving various aspects of science, including life, personal and social science; earth and space science; physical science and chemistry; technology and engineering; and

Team members include (from left) front row: Ross Carter, Kaleb Orr, Everett Stamm, Peter Beals, Maya Snyder, Noah Sturbois, Ben Fultz and Jackson Spainhoward; second row: Maya Bode, Elizabeth Bergmann, Chris Eberhart, Mindy Stoltz (coach) Caitlin Hyde, Lucas Smith, Rich Murray (coach) and J Hoerath (coach); third row: Mary Emma MacLeod, Zoe Wenk, Amelia Walsh, Allison Zawisa (coach), Richard Patterson (coach), David Ball, Eric Snyder (coach), Keith Orr (coach) and Pete See TEAM, page A5 Wenk (coach).

Grandview Heights students will start back to school a week earlier than usual next school year. The revised 2011-12 school year calendar, approved with a unanimous vote of the Grandview Heights Board of Education March 8 meeting, maintains the earlier start date proposed earlier this year by Superintendent Ed O’Reilly, but has a few changes from the calendar adopted in January. “It maintains exams before (winter) break, but it moves a couple things around,” O’Reilly said. Under the revised calendar, winter break will begin Dec. 22, which will be a professional development day for teachers, and students will return to school Jan. 5. One major change from the calendar approved in January is the last day of school. The last day of classes will be May 25, 2012, rather than May 30, ending school before Memorial Day. O’Reilly thanked Kids’ Club Director Courtney Price for agreeing to offer care Oct. 20-21, when no classes will be held because of a professional development day, and Nov. 23, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. He apologized for the administration’s role in failing to communicate the upcoming changes the public as well as he could have.

A closer look The revised 2011-12 school year calendar, approved with a unanimous vote of the Grandview Heights Board of Education March 8 meeting, maintains the earlier start date proposed earlier this year by Superintendent Ed O’Reilly, but has a few changes from the calendar adopted in January.

“Before I gave (the calendar) to the board, I would have liked the public to know a little bit more about that,” O’Reilly said, adding that staff, too, had a very short window of time to consider the proposed calendar before voting on it. Staff had adopted the 201112 calendar as originally proposed with a 60 to 40 percent vote. O’Reilly said at the Feb. 8 board meeting, when he presented the revised calendar, that he received e-mails and phone calls from parents with concerns about scheduling family holiday trips and vacations and arranging child care for the later end date of the original winter break. At the March 8 meeting, the superintendent expressed frustration at the number of e-mails he received from the same group all mentioning the same concerns. “Using the Mom’s Network to raise issues as a school district See CALENDAR, page A2

End of an era

Cason retires as ThisWeek executive editor By JEFF DONAHUE

Late that afternoon, vice president and executive editor Ben Cason will shut down his computer, gather his cell Friday, March 18, marks the end of phone and coat and quietly stroll out an era at ThisWeek Community News- of the newsroom the way he has every papers. week since 1993. ThisWeek Community Newspapers

However, come Monday morning, for the first time in 18 years, he won’t be leading a newsroom discussion on politics or the NCAA basketball tournament. Cason announced his retirement to

ThisWeek staffers March 11, concluding a career that spanned the height of the Watergate era as an editor at The Washington Post to building one of the nation’s most respected community newspaper organizations. Under Cason’s

leadership, ThisWeek Community Newspapers have won hundreds of state, regional and national awards for journalistic excellence. See CASON, page A5

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