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March 17, 2011

City considering business incubator Plan before council requests $1.1M for development, plus $525K over two years By JENNIFER NESBITT ThisWeek Community Newspapers

Westerville city staff members say the city does well in two out of three areas of economic development: job attraction and job retention. But, they said, the city stays out of the third component of job growth: job creation. A new plan designed by the staff would fill that gap with the start of a business incubator, a program designed

to jump-start new businesses and increase their chances for success. The plan was presented to Westerville City Council in a work session March 8. Carol Lauffer, a consultant with Business Cluster Development, said Westerville would need to offer $1.1-million for development and an additional $525,000 over two years to start its incubator. Lauffer said she believes after the initial two years, the incubator would be financially self-sustaining.

“Every incubator requires some sort of subsidy. I think of it as the seed for economic development. Some group has to step in and fund during initial years,” she said. Council will hear the first reading at its April 5 meeting for a $100,000 appropriation and an agreement with TechColumbus to move forward with the business incubator, said Jason Bechtold, Westerville economic development administrator. A third reading and a vote would come on May 3.

City manager Dave Collinsworth said the staff began discussing the creation of a business incubator last year in connection with the start-up of the community data center. Initially, the plan was to meld the two concepts together, but ultimately, Collinsworth said, staff members found they needed to be approached separately, and the city moved forward with the data center while exploring a separate plan for a business incubator. With money allocated by council, the

city staff began working with TechColumbus, which has started other business incubators in central Ohio, and with Lauffer. Assistant city manager Julie Colley said a business incubator would help Westerville take businesses’ plans from “a piece of paper to actual job creation.” “In models across the country, this business incubation works,” Colley said. “This is where we’re headed. This is See BUSINESS START-UPS, page A6

Westerville unions band together to oppose S.B. 5 By JENNIFER NESBITT ThisWeek Community Newspapers

Union members in Westerville have banded together to oppose a controversial bill to limit collective bargaining. Representatives from the unions that represent the city’s firefighters, police and service workers, and Westerville City Schools’ teachers, maintenance workers, bus drivers, mechanics and classified staff met last week to discuss what they could do to make sure Senate Bill 5 won’t take effect.

The groups were scheduled to hold a rally March 15 at Westerville Central High School, followed by a march to Gov. John Kasich’s house, to show their opposition to the bill. “It seems like they’re trying to fix the budget crisis on the backs of the working people. You can’t blame the budget crisis on the working class,” said firefighter Tom Ullom, chair of governmental and legislative affairs for WPFF/IAFF L-3480, the union that represents the city’s firefighters. See UNIONS, page A6

City attempts to shoo geese from area parks By JENNIFER NESBITT By Chris Parker/ThisWeek

Emerson Elementary School students have been working on a clean-water project and to raise awareness of the lack of clean water in impoverished nations. Pictured are (back row, from left) Brandon Allbritton, Amanda Hurt and Emma Davidson; (middle row) Nia Hassey, Connor Lewis; (front row) Ema Rennie, Catie Less and Ellie Bouton.

Students bring World Water Day to Westerville By JENNIFER NESBITT ThisWeek Community Newspapers

Many people take the clean water that runs from their taps for granted. Several Emerson Magnet School students are working to change that, while also raising money to provide people in developing countries with access to clean water. The project to raise money for an awareness project about the lack of clean drinking water worldwide began last year, after

first-grade teacher Mary Taylor and thirdgrade teacher Beth Dailin took a course on service learning. “We kind of learned that all these countries had a hard time getting clean water,” Dailin said. “We asked ourselves: What could we do to solve that problem?” In a Scholastic News article, Dailin learned about Proctor and Gamble’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water project, which provides PUR water packets to people in developing countries.

“It’s a portable water treatment plant in a pack,” Dailin said. Students researched the worldwide problem of the lack of clean, safe drinking water. They created brochures and informational displays to take to public events to raise money for the cause. “As soon as children hear about children who are dying, they just want to help,” Taylor said.

ThisWeek Community Newspapers

Geese have become persona non grata in Westerville’s parks. The gaggles of geese that flock to parks, mostly the community center, sports complex and Hoff Woods Park, litter trails and fields with droppings and bring in complaints from residents, Westerville Parks and Recreation Department director Randy Auler said. “It was really probably our No. 1 complaint from citizens last year,” Auler said.

In addition to being a nuisance to park patrons, the geese also create more work for parks and recreation staff members, who must clean up the mess left by the geese. Because it’s an ongoing problem, Auler said, the work seems to be neverending. “It’s very time consuming in terms of manpower,” he said. To combat the problem, the city has contracted with a Columbus company called Go Geese Go that will bring herding dogs into the problem parks to chase See GEESE ISSUE, page A6

See EMERSON, page A6

Cason retires as ThisWeek executive editor By JEFF DONAHUE ThisWeek Community Newspapers

Friday, March 18, marks the end of an era at ThisWeek Community Newspapers. Late that afternoon, vice president and executive editor Ben Cason will shut down his computer, gather his cell phone and coat and quietly stroll

out of the newsroom the way he has every week since 1993. 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 excelBy Chris Parker/ThisWeek

See CASON RETIRES, page A6 Ben Cason