Historic Preservation Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call this meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission of March 27 to order. First order of business, Mr. Mayor, if you would, we have a member that is renewing their membership on this council, so this commission. So if you could administer the oath of yeah, oath of office, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I since we're on the record, I just want to thank you all for all the evenings of work that you do for the community. I don't often make it to these. Not a lot of residents do, but we appreciate all that you do. So the commissioner that I'm swearing in, why don't we come up front?

Welcome back, Mandy.

Thank you.

Like she never left. That's right.

The next order of business is election of officers. It's customary of this of the commission to each year elect a chair and a co chair or

Vice chair.

Vice chair, excuse me. And since it's the first meeting of the year, that's what we will do next. Mr. Mayor, would you take care of the election of officers, please?

I would love to. And so, I'm just going to step in for just a moment. And how this will work is, I will take nominations for do we call this the Chairperson? For the Chairperson, we'll then once those nominations are taken, I'll close the nominations and then you'll vote. And then once the Chairperson is selected, I'll get out of the way, leave the meeting and then the Chairperson will proceed, I think, to go ahead and ask for a vote on an Assistant Chair. Is that how that there's Assistant Chair. Very good. So at this time, I would like to take nominations for the Chairperson of the Historic Preservation Commission for the next year.

I'd like to nominate Mr. Schreckenberger.

Second.

There's been a nomination and a second to nominate Chaz Schreckenberger to be the Chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission. Are there any other nominations? Hearing none, we'll close nominations. And so at this time, we'll take a vote on Mr. Schreckenberger's nomination to serve as Chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission for the following year. Would you please call the roll?

Yes. Mr. Schweikert?

Yes.

Ms. Tanner? Yes. Nito? Yes. Ms. Sankert? Yes.

Mr. Schweikert? Abstain.

So the motion is carried, if I'm counting right, four to nothing with one abstention. So congratulations, Mr. Schreckenberger. You're returning as Chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission. We are honored to have you. Thank you again for your service.

Thank you, Mr. Mayer. And thank you for My being present privilege. So then, as Mr. Mayer said, the next order of business is to accept nominations for Vice Chair. And so I will open the floor to that. Are there any nominations for Vice Chair? I will nominate Mary Tanner.

I will second.

Any other nominations? Hearing none, roll call, please.

Mr. Schreichenberger?

Yes.

Mr. Schreichert?

Yes.

Nito? Yes. Ms. Sanker? Yes. Ms. Tanner? Abstain.

Sounds like we have a new Vice Chair. Thank you very much. Okay. The next order of business is the approval of the rules and procedures. Oh, I'm sorry. Now it is roll call for the presence of the commissioners.

Mr. Schweiker?

Here.

Ms. Sanker? Here. Ms. Panito? Here. Ms. Tanner? Here. Mr. Schreichenberger?

Here.

Also present are student representatives Chloe Gardner and Addison Johnson.

And as long as we have just introduced our students, it appears like this might be your last meeting, unless we meet before you graduate.

For both of us. Mhmm.

Congratulations on being seniors. Thank you for being part of our commission for the past year, and we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. Are you heading out of town?

I'm going to Miami University, so in Ohio, but a couple hours away.

Okay.

I'm I'm still deciding, waiting on, like, some decisions still. So

K. You got your whole life to decide.

So For sure.

Well, pressure. Take your time and, you know, be be careful about how you do that. So anyways, thank you again for being here. We really appreciate your participation. Next order of business. Where are there any? Rules and procedures. Where are there any?

They were attached. I didn't No changes.

We didn't have any. Mm-mm. Okay. The next order of business, as we do every year, is to approve the rules and procedures of this commission. In your packet that was emailed to you all, There was a copy of that. In reviewing that, I did not see any revisions from what we approved last year. So I would entertain a motion to approve those rules and regulations I'm sorry, rules and procedures.

I move to adopt the rules and procedures as attached to tonight's agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye.

Any

opposed? Any abstentions? Sounds like we passed unanimously. Thank you. Okay. Now we'll go to the minutes from October 24. Those were also in your packet.

The corrected versions are everyone has tonight.

Okay. Where did they all go? I did have one correction that that was taken care of prior to tonight. So the newest version is in your packet tonight. So if entertain any a motion to accept the minutes.

I move to accept the minutes as presented tonight. Is there a second?

Second. Any discussion on the minutes? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. Okay. So the next order of business is the Hartung Southgate Farms signage discussion. And, Ms. Herring, are you going to do that? Lead us in that discussion, please.

So like the Lichtenwolter sign that we looked at last year, the Southgate Farm, Hartong Farm sign is proposed to be about that size. Location will be in the vicinity of the farm complex. I say that because when you come to the farm, you enter a Mount Pleasant and the first thing you see is the farm fields, this sign will be further up where the house and the barn are so that folks who are walking through the park can see the sign. We get a lot of questions about what is this. So the sign is designed to answer some of those questions.

Tonight, I'm looking for, obviously, discussion and feedback, but I would like a vote not to approve necessarily, but that you are either recommending or not recommending or table if you have a lot of changes that you would like to make. I'm going to leave it at that, open it up for discussion.

Well, I will jump in. First, I appreciate this initiative generally that the city is working through. I think this is really going to add something meaningful to all these locations where we can post some of these. The next thing specifically, looking at the samples we have in front of us, you know, I think they're all well crafted. Right?

So if I came across any of these, I wouldn't think twice other than to read them and go through what they're displaying. The only comment I initially have is on all of them across the materials, we include the Southgate Farm stylized logo. One of them uses that for the header of the signage. I personally find that kind of duplicative and a little distracting. So I would prefer one of the others. But if any of these signs were up when I came through Southgate Farm, like, that would seem appropriate to me. But that's the one comment I kind of had on initial impression.

Are there any other comments having reviewed the samples?

I really liked in the third one where it's bullet points, what the complex includes. I like it better. It seems neater than just to put them all together with comas. So I really like that number three. It's clear to me, but they're all really nice.

Any other comments both on the arrangement or the verbiage or any of any comments on any parts of it?

I agreed with both of them. I think the duplication of the Southgate Farm logo is distracting. I just have a question about the font, actually. I know this sounds kind of particular, but it's a little light. I actually like the font on the the fall for the other signs better. I think it's a little bit more modern, the ones for I'm trying to say from last the last meeting.

Oh, for the Lichtenwald Schoolhouse.

Thank you. Yes.

Yeah.

It was a little bit more eye catching, but I also agree that the bullet points are better for the eye and readability and that sort of thing. I just think the Southgate Farm needs to almost be in bold or something to catch the eye.

Mary, any thoughts?

I was just wondering if I liked Carmen's point about the bullet points, but I was just wondering if there should be some capitalization in those or at least in the first word.

Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Good catch. That's why we have a librarian now. What size would these be? This wouldn't be the final size. Is that correct?

Yeah. They are. 24 by 36 is what we're and, of course, that's that that's depending on where it goes. It's we're having a little bit of trouble. We wanna stay out of Rachel's way, you know, in a farm real estate is valuable. So gotta figure out where it goes. And if it goes in a place where it's swamped because it's too small, then we'll go bigger. But it's really for people who are walking by, give them an idea of what they're walking by.

Is there any discussion about maybe having more than one location?

Not at this time. I wouldn't rule that out permanently. Parks is also, I don't know if you've all been to Butler recently, but Butler Park now has a lot of wayfinding signage. They're gonna do that to Southgate this year. So I wanna wanna let them, finish that out so I know I don't want too many signs, but, one for now. That's a lot of sentences to say one for now.

I'm not sure, you know, how how people approach on a regular basis, you know, from a pedestrian standpoint and also vehicularly.

That's a really great point because they do come at it from two different directions all the time. Sometimes three if they're coming from Twisted Olive. They come down over the hill.

Which is why the nature of my question was, you know, is it it is valuable information, and is it worth at least having a couple of strategic locations? So for now, no, but consider maybe.

Ladies?

I guess, I'm gonna make the Southgate logo

Can you pull your microphone down so you can be heard?

The Southgate logo, could you make that any bigger? Because I'm standing pretty far from here, and I can make out the words up top really well. But if you're looking from a far distance, if you could make that logo slightly larger. So maybe because I have a little bit of eyesight problems, I struggle to read and make out the word Southgate in the logo. It's not that you have to do that, but, like, that's something to

Mhmm.

Thank you for that observation.

I had similar opinions as everyone else with the two, like, duplication of the logo. And then I liked the whole, like, making the font a little bit easier to read and bigger and, like, the bold bolding of the Southgate font on the top.

Yeah. I kind of like the idea of larger font too, and that's why I asked, know, what the size of the final product would be. You have to be pretty close for those of us that have nearsightedness to to see clearly. I mean, but it does draw your eye. I mean, the the photographs are great. And, you know, the the word history and learn more are, you know, stand out, which is a good thing. So it makes you want to come closer and read it. But maybe just a slightly larger font would be better.

None of you have mentioned the one that brings me the most heartache, so I'm just gonna leave it there.

No. No. Happy to

let us know what's bothering you.

You know, as well, I told you this already, but from a purist standpoint, purest historical standpoint, that should say Levi Hartong Farm, but that's not the message I want. When people come around the corner and see this, they say, what is this? Well, it is the Levi Hartong Farm, but that's not what it's doing at the moment. So I embedded the language in the narrative, and I hope everybody's okay with that. And I feel a lot better getting that off my chest.

And we feel better that you got it on

your chin.

Let me ask a question relative to that, and that is, could there be both in a larger scale? Like, for example, you have the, Southgate Farm logo down between the the three, photographs. Could you have the Southgate part there and maybe slightly larger and then across the top on, like, one of the other two, having the Levi Hartung house and farm there, would that give you anxiety? I mean, I think Because it is both.

It is both, but that message is confusing. What is it?

Any comments on that?

I shouldn't have said it, see.

No. So I did see the historical note of the Levi J. Hartong house and farm. And I think colloquially now people walking through the park just refer to it as Southgate. So I think that's appropriate. I mean, if we wanted to go to great pains to do this, you probably could have the Levi J Hartung house at Southgate Farm. But that seems like a lot of verbiage up in the head, like.

Yeah.

So I think this naming is acceptable. It makes the historical note. If it were signed otherwise, I don't know that I would complain about that either. But I think as a general identifier, it is probably more recognized in the community now generally as Southgate than more specifically as the Levi J. House and Farm.

Which is what the point is. Yeah. Yeah. What if we made the Levi the where it says Levi j Hartung House and Farm, what if we made that a bold Mhmm.

And and it Oh, that's a good

idea. Bunched it out a And little

you know where that Southgate Farm logo is that's smaller

Mhmm. Mhmm.

Wonder if there's a National Register logo.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, for the farm itself? That

would be a good way because, really, having two of the Southgate

Farm is a little Yeah. It's a little much. Alright.

So there is our feedback, I guess.

Anybody else? And I think you have our general support. Yes. Do you need something more official tonight, a declaration or a statement? Or is the discussion sufficient?

I think the discussion's sufficient. Yeah. I I really wanted you to vote, but I I think it's gonna be hard to vote on on all these suggestions. I think I've got them all. So I I feel like the preferred is three ish, the bullet points, but they need some massaging and take the duplicative logo out, make the title bigger, bolder, bold Levi j Hartung, and look for a National Register logo. What did I miss?

I think you captured it. That's it. Yeah. What she said. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Okay.

You got our vote.

Thank you very much.

Sorry for being so casual. Next item on the agenda will be tabled until next time, Southgate Farm Annual Report.

That's also me. I am not going to talk about this very much. I just want to remind you that Southgate Farm, part of her lease, their lease is, every year in January. She submits an annual farm report that reports on what happened in 2024 and her proposed development plans for 2025. This is five year anniversary for Southgate Farm.

I can't believe it's been five years already. 04/01/2025, it'll be five. They moved in, and COVID shut the world down. This year, for the first time, we invited Rachel to the review meeting. So Chaz sits on that review meeting from your from the Historic Preservation Commission.

There's also, a representative from the Parks Board, the Living Green Task Force, park Parks and Service Planning, and several of her green residents who shop and are very familiar with her business. And our recommendation from the Cuyahoga Valley National Park when we first started this program was not to bring the farmer to this meeting in case there were problems, you know, you needed to be able to speak freely. But year five, that's just never been the case. Year over year, she just has, done incredible things out there. All the feedback we get from the public is positive.

The only person who is negative about that farm is Rachel herself. She's hard on herself and she feels like she should be doing a lot more than she is, but that is not the consensus of the committee. She has for those of you who know what a CSA is, community supported agriculture, where you sign up and for a subscription for that growing season. She has a waiting list out the door. People are always waiting to get on that list.

So, really positive things. I'm not going to go over her report. It's very detailed, very technical, just like Rachel herself, but having her at the meeting was really positive and I think she got some positive feedback that she was appreciative of. I do want to mention the city has made some investment out there we do every year, but this year we've finally put a new roof on the equipment shed. That is not a building that's under your purview.

It's the the newer equipment shed off the road. We also put concrete pads inside so it's easier to get the equipment in and out, And we have a carpenter who is working on, making new doors for that same shed, and then the whole thing will get painted. So that that building is gonna be tied up neatly this year. And I'm happy to answer any questions about Southgate Farm, but that's my report for that.

I guess my question would be, is there any other activity there that would involve our commission this coming year?

Only if I can we continue to work on a request for proposals for the woodshed. I don't know if any of you have tried to get people to do work at your house, but it's we bring them back there. We've brought several contractors back to the site, and they look at the size of this woodshed and just to mobilize to to do what needs to be done. There's some structural work that needs to be done. We just haven't had any takers.

So we continue to look for people who are willing to come back there and work on that. But other than that, no, there's there's nothing in the works. Justin is tearing apart the inside of the summer kitchen, but that is not something you review. It's only outside. And if you remember, those of you who've been in the summer kitchen, it it's got that faux brick stuff.

Oh, and it's just yeah. He's he's he's taking it down. And they're gonna put some flooring on the 2nd Floor of the summer kitchen. They have a lot of in the summertime, they're a wolf farm, a worldwide organic, opportunity for farmers. So all summer, all growing season, they have people staying with them from all over the world. And if, they would like to finish the upstairs of that summer kitchen just to have overflow space for people to sleep.

And what was what was the result of, you know, the idea of window replacement? Or

They we did we did replace windows. We had, the same carpenter who is working on the equipment shed doors, remaking them. He came in and took the windows out and just re don't ask me to give you the technical terms, but he refitted them so they fit better. And so that that's helped. It it's not a perfect solution. Those are single pane. Is that the right thing? I mean, they we really need to get her better windows. But for now, that's an improvement.

They did have storm and they had storm windows on it.

I believe so.

Yeah. But for a historic building, you know, that's the first step is that sounds like you're doing the right thing. Yeah. Alright. This is the Sarah Hearing Show tonight

Sorry.

Planning Department report.

All right. And real quickly, so the Planning Department submitted a grant to the Ohio and Erie Canalway Coalition to get money to do design and engineering for a walkway at Lichtenwalter. So if you've been at Lichtenwalter a lot, you know that it's easy to get to the 1st Floor or the Upper Floor, I should say. But if you come out of the door and you want to go to the lower level, if you're young, it's easy. But it's quite a slope going down there.

So and we have a rain garden in that area. We want, plans to help us know how we can navigate that space so people can more easily walk out the door. And somehow it'd probably be very serpentine like because of the slope, but to get down to the lower level without having to go all the way around, the other way. So that that grant went in this week. In your packet or did you click on the c l oh, Wayne wanted to share CLG information with you, certified local government.

This is what you are. This is what the Historic Preservation Commission is. This is just a review for some of you that are newer on the commission. This is who we are and what we do. If you go to the CLG page on the Ohio History Connection website, that's us. There's a picture of the Hartong farmhouse on one side and the Hartong barn on the other.

It's Sarah Herring right in the middle.

No. Oh, no. I don't

know what's in the middle. But anyway, it's just a good review. I've been in contact with Richard Edwards and the proprietors of the industry because we we wanna get them a plaque, a historic plaque for their building now that they're open. No details on that yet. I just wanted you to know we're working on it.

Last but not least, the city is embarking on a public art plan initiative. We distributed a request for proposals. We received 14 proposals from consultants to help us develop a public art plan. The scoring committee has dialed it down to four, and it wasn't easy. But, we have got four really strong contenders.

They will be interviewed the last two weeks of April. So concurrently with that process and into the May 1, we will be seating a steering committee for the public art plan. A member of this commission will I will be asking for a volunteer to attend, be part of that from this commission. If I have a lot of interest, we may have to choose a primary and an alternate, But just keep that in mind. And I'll have more information about that at the May meeting or maybe even sooner. And that's all from me.

Thank you.

That's all from me.

That was Great report. Thank you. And I don't see anyone from the Historical Society, but, Mr. Schweiker, do you have any, information you'd want to share?

Glenn and Stacy are obviously not here tonight. They've got other commitments. I can share some things I know, though this is not an official report. This is just I happen to be in the vicinity of knowledge. So one thing, since the last time we met, the historical society had their holiday party, and it was at the Henry Heiss home, which was open for tours to anyone in attendance.

The next thing that they're really getting ready for is that the schoolhouse will return to its normal summer hours, so it will be back open to the public inn regularly. Those hours and days will be posted at the schoolhouse. I expect it to be similar to what it's been in years past. The next big thing coming up that everyone gets excited for, there's preparations in the work for a day in 1885 with the elementary students. And that if anybody has not participated in that and has any interest, it really is kind of an exciting thing.

And it amazes me as the kids get older how much they do remember of that. So I don't know if anybody would want to attest to that if they got to do that program because we still have that gap in there when the schoolhouse wasn't available. So we have students that weren't. But that's a pretty amazing thing.

So the seniors I don't know about these two seniors. But the senior class, that's the last class that was there before the arson. Because we have a senior who went, and her sister was the first class to go back once it was yeah. So they do.

And then just lastly, obviously, have a number of events through the spring and summer that will be happening in the park. And the historical society will be there with the schoolhouse and other things going on. And you'll have to look for those coordinated details as we get closer to those events. But that's the brief report from the historical society.

Thanks, James. You mentioned, if you haven't had any involvement, you should. What kind of involvement can people

do for that The simplest and easiest place to step in among the volunteers is simply to be a chaperone. With the large number of people that are there and the artifacts and other things that are going on, someone can step in to be a chaperone and literally just be there for the day, help with the kids. It's about a half a day's worth of work. There's a number of days that go on, and you only have to commit to one at a time. So don't think that your volunteering means that you've got to be there every day this goes on.

The volunteer list tends to rotate in and out depending on people's availability. Next, there is sort of the schoolhouse teacher's assistant, somebody who can help do displays or they'll have the option of being taught some of the things that we teach the kids, some of the timely games that they do or the historical artifacts. There's a sort of a guess what this is or scavenger hunting that goes on. And then at the very top is anyone who was willing to be sort of the teacher, school mom, headmaster, typically somebody who is willing to do a little bit of historical reenactment, get into costume and really sort of play the part. But there really is a broad range of volunteer spots available.

And if anybody is interested, all you have to do is reach out to the historical society and let them know. They will get back in touch and tell you what you can do.

I've been a school Mormons assistant for several years. Always it's always fun, and it's always slightly different every year. So I highly recommend it.

And these are fifth graders. Right? They're third Third grade. Okay. They're younger. Okay. Awesome. Well, thanks, James. Appreciate it. And, that's the end of the agenda. Is there any other for the good of the order, any other topics that anybody wanted to

bring up? I just do want to make a note, because I don't know if the public knows, but like a number of us got to go to one of the soft opening nights for the industry, which I personally found very impressive. I appreciate the living building, right? Historical buildings really aren't designed to just sit empty and waste away. We have been back since then and had another very good experience. So not to just plug a business, but if anybody were interested in the East Liberty Schoolhouse or the new restaurants in Green, I would recommend that someone go check that out.

Thanks for bringing that up because, unfortunately, I was not able to be at the soft opening, and I regret that because everybody that has mentioned it were everybody had a great time. And the food is great. And it feels, to your point, it feels like we as a community accomplished something meaningful by saving that building and now making it a live building and not just sitting there. So we, as a commission, should be proud of that because we had something to do with it. So thank you. Any other comments or points?

Yes. Wanted to let you know that we enjoyed having you here, and we really thank you for your time and for everything that you do. So thank you so much. Okay.

Hearing no others, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Anybody?

Motion to adjourn.

Second. Okay. All in favor, say aye. Aye. We're adjourned. Thank you.