Drummey says School District at levy tipping point

Dur­ing Mon­day evening’s Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing, dis­trict trea­surer Feli­cia Drum­mey said dis­trict rev­enue for the cur­rent fis­cal year is on track to be 2 per­cent higher than projected

“Income tax is also run­ning well above pro­jec­tions,” Drum­mey said. “I antic­i­pated a 5 per­cent income tax increase, it’s run­ning at 8 per­cent, gen­er­at­ing $441,000 more for the year than we antic­i­pated — evi­dence that the econ­omy is com­ing back.”

Drum­mey also noted that dis­trict expen­di­tures are on track with pro­jec­tions, and for the fis­cal year should be one per­cent less than projected.

In pre­sent­ing the May five-year fore­cast, Drum­mey said that doc­u­ment is the first mea­sure of the district’s fis­cal health – how rev­enue com­ing in com­pares to rev­enue going out.

Fujii: Relevance makes rigor possible at BWHS

Dur­ing Mon­day evening’s Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing, Big Wal­nut High School Prin­ci­pal Steve Fujii quoted edu­ca­tion guru Bill Daggett, who said: Rel­e­vance makes rigor possible.

Fujii was speak­ing about Big Wal­nut teach­ers like Alan Frank that take on projects where stu­dents cre­ate a prod­uct or design solu­tion for an out­side client that’s used in the real world.

The idea being that stu­dents who roll up their sleeves and pro­duce some­thing for a client that will then be used out­side of the school engages student’s atten­tion more than if they were cre­at­ing a pre­tend solu­tion to a pre­tend prob­lem that will never see the light of day.

BW Leo Club inducts 12 new members

Leo Clubs are a youth ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion of Lions Clubs Inter­na­tional. In June of 2000, for­mer Big Wal­nut High School teacher Mark Matthews formed the Big Wal­nut Leo Club. Since then the Big Wal­nut Leo Club had been one of the high school’s sta­ple extra-curricular activ­i­ties until bud­get con­straints elim­i­nated most 2010-11 school year club advi­sor funding.

Big Wal­nut High School Span­ish lan­guage teacher and Leo Club advi­sor Dora Riggs was instru­men­tal in suc­cess­fully res­ur­rect­ing the high school’s Leo Club fol­low­ing its full year hia­tus. Last school year when the Leo Club was rein­stated 32 high school stu­dent were inducted into the Big Wal­nut Leo Club; and last Thurs­day evening another dozen stu­dents were inducted into the school’s Leo Club ranks.

SUMC gearing up for 26th Annual Memorial Day Yard Sale

The Sun­bury United Methodist Church (SUMC) will host its 26th annual Memo­r­ial Day Yard Sale from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mon­day, May 27 at 100 West Cherry Street. This annual event, which is held in con­junc­tion with the Memo­r­ial Day Flea Mar­ket on the Sun­bury square, attracts peo­ple from all over cen­tral Ohio. Park­ing is free, and there will be great deals on fur­ni­ture, tools, toys, house­hold goods, antiques and more, all donated by church members.

Dominion Homes’ gets nod to proceed at Sunbury Meadows

Steve Peck with Domin­ion Homes was in cham­bers dur­ing last Wednesday’s Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil meet­ing to ask coun­cil mem­bers to approve Sun­bury Mead­ows Sec­tions 5 A and B with a sus­pen­sion of the rules and emer­gency lan­guage to allow the devel­oper to pro­ceed with lay­ing out the two section’s infrastructure.

“The two sec­tions con­tain 53 lots; West­port Homes will buy some of the lots,” Peck said, adding that the com­ple­tion of the two sec­tions would loop some streets in the sub­di­vi­sion that now end in stubs.

Peck also noted that Dominion’s con­struc­tion activ­ity is increasing.

Town Hall roof out to bid

Dur­ing last Wednesday’s Sun­bury Vil­lage Coun­cil meet­ing vil­lage con­sult­ing engi­neer Wes Hall, CT Con­sul­tants, said the town hall roof project is going out for a three-week bid process. Hall said the bid open­ing to deter­mine the low­est and best bid would be held at 12 noon on Wednes­day, May 24.

Sun­bury Town Hall has needed a new roof for some time. There have been leaks in coun­cil cham­bers, the metal roof is cor­roded and break­ing apart around the perime­ter, the painted coat­ing is fail­ing, and nails are pulling out.

Late last year Hall brought in Dan Bon­ham from his office to inspect the inte­rior and exte­rior of the roof to deter­mine its exact con­di­tion, and the nature of needed repairs when the roof is replaced.

Post 457 Community Service Awards presented to Donna, Glenn Evans


Amer­i­can Legion Colonel Ben­son Hough Post 457 recently announced the 2013 recip­i­ents for the post’s Com­mu­nity Ser­vice Awards. The indi­vid­ual award went to Donna and Glenn Evans of Sunbury.

“This ded­i­cated cou­ple have given hun­dreds of hours serv­ing the com­mu­nity in youth activ­i­ties as well as any other event that takes place in the schools, their church or in the Vil­lage,” said Post 457 Com­man­der Roy Terry. “Over the last 35 years I have never attended a local func­tion that Donna and Glenn were not involved in, either directly or behind the scenes.” 


Sunbury holds Arbor Day ceremony on Square

The Vil­lage of Sun­bury recently held its annual Arbor Day cel­e­bra­tion as part of the community’s require­ments for main­tain­ing Tree City USA sta­tus with the Arbor Day Foundation.

Com­mu­ni­ties achieve Tree City USA sta­tus by meet­ing four core stan­dards of sound urban forestry man­age­ment: main­tain­ing a tree board or depart­ment, hav­ing a com­mu­nity tree ordi­nance, spend­ing at least $2 per capita on urban forestry and cel­e­brat­ing Arbor Day.

Tree City USA is a large and grow­ing fra­ter­nity of 3,400 com­mu­ni­ties; over 135 mil­lion peo­ple live in a Tree City USA community.

Sun­bury attained Tree City USA sta­tus five years ago and each year as part of its Tree City USA require­ment held a brief tree plant­ing cer­e­mony. This year mem­bers of the Vil­lage of Sun­bury Tree & Land­scape Com­mis­sion decided to place tree iden­ti­fi­ca­tion mark­ers next to 20 pre-selected trees on vil­lage square in lieu of tree plant­ing as an Arbor Day requirement.