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Pataskala City Administrator Tim Hickin predicts the first scheduled June meeting of Pataskala City Council will look a lot more like those typically held before the global pandemic.
Citing lifting of state health mandates expected to kick-in June 2, Hickin said, “I would expected this chambers will return to what it used to look like for the first meeting in June.”
“Citizens will be allowed to come back in, directors will be back up along the sides (of the council chambers room) and your daises will all be next to each other,” Hickin said.
Throughout the pandemic, council members have been masked and sitting several feet apart, managers spread-out throughout the chambers, and the public invited to come in one-at-a-time for any public comment.
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Pataskala voters will be asked to decide an income tax increase request at the fall ballot to fund city police services.
Pataskala City Council earlier established two options to take to the ballot: one would place a 0.25% income tax on the ballot; the other option – the one ultimately selected by a divided council – calls for a 0.50% income tax increase, but allowing a credit not to exceed 25%.
Both alternatives had their champions at the May 3 council meeting.
An earlier attempt at a half-percent increase to fund policing services was rejected by 56.5% of voters last April.
Before voting to decide which issue to move onto this fall’s ballot, Mayor Mike Compton said, “You all know that the first time around there were people, boots on the ground, working on this. We were hoping to see good numbers, whether it went one way or the other last time, just to see where we were at. And, of course, between COVID and the election being canceled and all that stuff,
In a phone interview the following day, Sharrock elaborated: “April 11 was the peak so far.”
The city has been going through a series of peaks and valleys with its state-funded COVID-19 waste-water testing, with a recent spike, then followed by a return to relative “normal”, and now having recorded this current spike.
In the most recent case, Sharrock said, after results were shared with the Licking County Board of Health, it was found actual confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection saw an increase within the city.
The wastewater test results in this case, Sharrock said, proved to be an accurate “precursor… It’s more like an early warning system.”
Council member Todd Barstow cast the lone dissenting vote against the rezoning.
As earlier reported, TPA is proposing a 1.2 million square foot warehouse/distribution facility “and associated site improvements.”
It was previously noted the TPA proposal aligns with the recommendation of the city s Comprehensive Plan and was recommended for approval by the Planning and Zoning Commission on Feb. 3, according to city documents.
Council also held a first reading for a similar warehouse project – this one calling for two large-size distribution-style structures – to be constructed in the Broad Street and Etna Parkway area.
As previously reported, South Carolina-based “Red Rock,” is proposing two, approximately million-square-feet buildings on land fronting Broad Street within Pataskala’s Joint Economic Development District (or JEDD), in the Pataskala Corporate Park.