Salem Ward 3

Anti-Graffiti Meeting – Feb. 26, 6:00 PM

rick-drummond — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 22:56:27 +0000

Please consider attending the next Anti-Graffiti meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 26 at 6:00 PM in Salem City Council Chambers. Remember, we need everyone’s involvement so please, come out and get involved!

Attention Members and Potential Members

rick-drummond — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 17:38:53 +0000

REMINDER: For purposes of security and avoiding misuse of this website, individuals requesting to become members of the Salem Ward 3 site MUST provide valid first and last names. Any members without a valid first and last name on their profile will have their profiles deleted by me, Rick Drummond, website owner. Thank you.

Organizational Meeting Regarding Dealing with Graffiti

rick-drummond — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:03:59 +0000

There will be a public meeting held on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013 at 6:00 PM in the Salem City Council Chambers. The purpose of the meeting is to start to form committees and work groups to address dealing with and removal of graffiti around the city. Some may recall the Rules & Ordinance Committee took up the subject of abating graffiti by requiring property owners on which graffiti has been placed to remove it within a specified period of time. At that time, a number of residents expressed concern over forcing the victim of the graffiti crime to clean it up. The R&O Committee decided at that time we would table any type of legislative solution and planned on having this meeting. We encourage anyone who feels graffiti is a blight on our city to attend this meeting and plan on becoming an active participant. See you on Jan. 29!

Proposed East End Development Project

rick-drummond — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 00:50:35 +0000

Many of you may be aware there is a Cleveland firm, NRP Group, that is proposing to purchase land at the east end of the city, for the purpose of building a three phase housing development. As part of the proposed purchase, there is a request to rezone land south of East Pershing that is currently zoned C-2 (General Commercial) to RA (Multiple Family). The Planning Commission has met on this matter and recommended the rezoning proceed. The next step in the process is a joint meeting of the Planning Commission and the Salem City Council. That meeting will be on Tuesday, Dec. 18 at 7:00 PM in Council Chambers. This is a public hearing, so if you have something you’d like the Commission or Council to know on this matter, please feel free to attend.

At this same meeting, there will be discussion on the proposed zoning change of land east of the end of Oak Street, Tanglewood Drive, Kennedy Drive and Edgewood Drive from RA (Multiple Family) to RS-2 (Single Family). The Planning Commission has indicated it is in favor of making this change to provide a buffer zone between Oak, Tanglewood, Kennedy, Edgewood and the proposed NRP housing development. As with the change of the C-2 to RA proposal, the public is welcome to attend the meeting to provide their comments and thoughts on this change.

The Proposed Performance Audit of the City of Salem

rick-drummond — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 00:27:53 +0000

As most of you may know, the City of Salem has been in negotiations with the Auditor of State (AoS) with regards to having a Performance Audit done. Some residents have questioned the benefit of such an audit, given the potential cost to the City. I’d like to share my thoughts so you know where I stand on the issue.

Having a performance audit will achieve one of two possible outcomes. It will either determine that the City is being run as efficiently as it can be, given the current revenues and expenses, or it there will be possible savings found by the audit. These would not be one time savings, but year over year savings. The cost of this Performance Audit is not to exceed $71,700. It is possible it could be less, depending on the amount of work the team from the AoS must do to complete the audit.

Depending on the findings of the Performance Audit, the cost to the City could be as low as $0 or as high as $71,700. If the audit found no savings whatsoever are possible (IE. The City is being run as efficiently as possible), then the City pays nothing for the audit. If the audit found ways that would save the City, for example, $100,000 annually, then the city would pay $71,700. Of course after implementing those changes and saving that money for just one year, the City would have recovered the monies spent on the audit. If the audit found ways the City could save $50,000 annually, the City would only pay $50,000 for the audit. Again, after implementing those changes, the City would pay for the audit after the first year.

I believe the City should be having the audit done. By doing so, we will show to the taxpayers of the City we are either currently doing the best we can with the monies the taxpayers are sending to us, or we’ll learn of ways we can improve, and use those monies more efficiently that we might be currently. Either way, I think the taxpayers will ultimately know their monies are not being wasted.

If you have thoughts, ideas, comments on this topic, feel free to post a comment.

Rick Drummond

Salem Ward 3 Online

SAWW3 — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:15:32 +0000

Salem, Ohio’s Ward 3 now has a dedicated website for the residents to communicate with their elected official, Councilman Rick Drummond. Please take the time to sign up as a member and use the website as another way to voice your concerns, opinions and comments. Thank you.