Letter to the Editor: Edgewood Road Improvement Project to be placed on November ballot
Memorial Day has come and gone, but the legacy of freedom the holiday honors and celebrates remains. The Edgewood Road referendum is an example. With little fanfare, determined, local citizens are reminding us that democracy lives; we can fight city hall; and government is still of, by and for the people!
On March 25, at the urging of Mayor Matt Starr and his administration, the city council, by a 4-3 vote, passed Resolution 2024-23, generally known as the Edgewood Road Extension or Improvement Project. While the project provides for much-needed repairs and improvements to Edgewood Road and utilities serving the area, those are only a small part of a much broader, ill-advised, “comprehensive” traffic and “improvements” plan developed by the administration that will affect everybody living in and traveling through Mount Vernon.
The plan, submitted by the city to the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) in June of 2023, and obtained only after we made a public records request, would not only affect Edgewood Road and extend it to Coshocton Road but would also alter East High Street and New Gambier Road to create an east-west throughway from the Public Square to Eastern Star and Upper Gilchrist Roads. This plan was conceived behind closed doors, without hearings or input from the public. If, as the administration claims, the project is necessary and will benefit the entire community, why did the administration make every effort to keep the plan a secret from the public until it was too late to object to and try to stop it before the council voted?