Salem chamber carries on improvement plan

By D.a. Wilkinson

SALEM — The Salem Area Chamber of Commerce will continue with its long-term plan for city improvements despite a less-than-enthusiastic response to it by city council.

Audrey Null, the chamber’s executive director, said in a letter sent this week that people who “originally worked so hard on the plan must carry out the different parts of the document by developing committees who can formulate the plan’s goals and objectives.”

The chamber had worked with Myra Moss and Bill Grunkemeyer of Ohio State University, who presented the 180-page document to council in June.

Work on the plan began in 2006 and was slowed in part by the city’s large and long bicentennial celebration that year.

Null wrote that council “gave a perfunctory thank you” by passing a resolution of appreciation but it did not adopt it as an ordinance.

Null wrote, “We laid the ground work; now let’s get back in the game and continue to work to together to make our community the best that it can be.”

The chamber wants people from the various committees to meet at 4 p.m. today with chamber president Dan Moore at the chamber to develop working committees for 2010.

Moore could not be contacted, and Null declined to comment further Tuesday.

The city already is working on some of the issues contained in the long-term plan, including housing demolition.

Steve Andres, Salem’s safety-service director, said eight homes have been demolished so far this year, and an additional seven homes are set to be demolished.

Marshall Bleckman of Bleckman and Associates in Canton helped the city get federal Community Development Block Grant funds for the work.

Andres said bids are to be let next month to raze another 15 rundown houses.

wilkinson@vindy.com