After its new and incumbent council members were sworn in, North Lewisburg Village Council was presented with a speech from a representative from Ohio Hi-Point Career Center at its Tuesday night meeting.
Rick Smith, superintendent of Ohio Hi-Point Career Center, gave a presentation to the council in the hopes of recruiting more students to the technical school. He also talked about how the facility is renovating some of its classes, and is looking for more funding.
“In the process of evaluating all of those type of things, we also realized we’re in a 47-year-old building that needs technology upgrades and upkeep,” Smith said. “Our story is very simple, in that we haven’t been to the voters since 1977.”
Smith said the school has been working off of a two mill levy for 40 years. He said the school cannot perform its more than $30 million renovation with the funding the school has.
He said the school’s goal is to campaign in May for a .6-mill permanent improvement levy. He said this would generate $2 million for the district, which would cost residents $1.84 a month.
“One of the reasons for the permanent (levy) is it can only be used for equipment and construction,” Smith said. “The other reason to make it a permanent (levy) is that we did the last one in 1977 and we think this can last us for another 40 years.”
Afterward in the meeting, Karen Salerno, a victims rights advocate with the Mechanicsburg Police Department, gave a presentation to the village council about promoting victim’s rights advocacy services.
In light of events where a woman in Dublin was scammed out of thousands of dollars, she extended an open invitation for an event at the Cherry Arbors apartment facility Jan. 26, starting at 2 p.m.
“I hope going forward, this will be something we continue to do,” Solerno said. “These scams continually regenerate and they’re always finding new ways to scam elderly people.”
Also in the meeting, the village council unanimously approved the third reading for an ordinance to allow the village to ban medical marijuana cultivators, processors and retail dispensaries.
The next North Lewisburg council meeting will be held Feb. 13 at 7 p.m.