Volume 54, No. 6
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
Your Community Newspaper Since 1967 West Geauga Chamber of Commerce Comes to Chester Twp. By Brian Doering brian@karlovecmedia.com A new West Geauga Chamber of Commerce will be arriving in Chester Township with a kickoff and open house from 4-6 p.m. Aug. 24. Chamber member Tonya Peto is ecstatic and said Chester has not had a chamber that primarily focuses on the West Geauga area. “I’m beyond excited,” said Peto. “I’ve lived in Chesterland for almost seven years, when I originally moved here, that was towards the end of the Chesterland chamber.” Peto said she has been working to try and pull a team together to find out from community business leaders if the West Geauga area needed a chamber of commerce. “Back in February or March, I put a small group together of local business owners in Chesterland specifically and we started with some meetings trying to figure out how to create a chamber,” said Peto. “There were some other gentlemen that we were running parallel together. They just moved a business into Novelty and they actually had the power to create a website and they have the school connection, so we were connected and I got with the right people, literally.” The Geauga West Public Library will be sponsoring the event, as well as helping with promotion and supplying refreshments. “The library has a new focus, as well, trying to offer support and resources to the local business community, so it was a perfect match,” said Peto. “We are going to be partnering with them moving forward and just hope to continue what they started in February helping local businesses, so we’re extremely happy to be partnered with them.” The chamber’s mission will be fostering business, community growth and development through See Chamber • Page 5
Man Snatches Woman’s Purse at Chester Day Care By John Karlovec john@karlovecmedia.com Police are looking for a Florida man who stole a woman’s purse from her SUV at a Chester Township day care center on July 8. According to incident report, at approximately 7 a.m., officers were dispatched to Miss Pat’s Day Care Center on Herrick Drive for a report of theft of a purse from a vehicle that occurred around 6:45 a.m. Surveillance video shows the victim’s vehicle pull into the day care parking lot at approximately 6:44 a.m. and take her child into the day care center. About one minute later, a bluish/gray Mazda SUV, without a front license plate and a dark-tinted front window, is seen leaving the access parking lot across the street, between
Parkview Drive and Herrick. “The Mazda pulls into the Miss Pat’s parking lot next to (the victim’s) vehicle on the driver’s side,” the report stated. “The driver of the Mazda crawls over the center console and exits his vehicle from the front passenger side.” The victim was not in her SUV at the time of the theft, Chester Township Police Chief Craig Young told the Chesterland News. The male was identified as a Black man approximately 2535 years old and wearing a pink sweatshirt. He pulled his sweatshirt sleeve over his right hand and entered the victim’s SUV from the driver’s door. He took the woman’s purse from the SUV, got back into his vehicle through the front passenger door and took off northbound on state Route 306, the report stated.
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“Upon further review of the video, the Mazda was in front of (the victim’s) vehicle prior to her arrival at Miss Pat’s,” the report stated. Due to the angle of the surveillance camera, police were unable to observe the Mazda’s license plate. The victim told police she had just under $100 in cash in her purse and already had canceled her bank cards. Young said they have identified the suspect as a man from Florida who is part of a group committing similar thefts in the area. He added social media was instrumental in the identification of the suspect. Young said his department is working with several other agencies and the cases likely will be joined together and charged in one county.
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Chester Township Police Chief Craig Young said this Florida man is a suspect in the theft of a woman’s purse at Miss Pat’s Day Care Center July 8. He is part of a larger group committing similar crimes in the area.
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