Two downtown business owners told the Winchester Board of Commissioners that they are losing business because of the construction on Depot Street.
Larry Bush, owner of the IGA grocery store, said at previous meetings that the parking issues are hurting his business. At Tuesday’s meeting, he said the closing of Highland Street because of the construction has affected his business even more severely.
“The situation gets worse every day,” Bush said.
A truck scraped the building and another truck hit the building because of space issues, Bush said. At previous meetings, he has said that many customers have complained and his sales are consistently dropping.
“I lost a $4,000 deal today,” said Amy Evans, owner of Red River Granite. “We were not given a heads-up that Highland would be closed so we couldn’t get enough stone in.”
Evans said she wasn’t going to schedule anymore deliveries until the trucks could get through.
Mayor Ed Burtner said they would look into what can be done for both Bush and Evans in order to keep their businesses running. Bush has submitted information in regards to his sales and any assistance will have to be approved by the city auditor and county attorney.
The Winchester/Clark County Addressing Committee has recommended making address changes on Redbud Lane and Fairwood Lane to improve 911 response time. Jacobus Ockers of 10 Redbud Lane, who was at Tuesday’s meeting, will be directly affected as it will change his address to 10 Fairwood Lane.
The commission assured Ockers that the change is for emergency purposes, since his house is facing Fairwood Lane rather than Redbud Lane. Ockers, who said he just recently changed his address, said he wants to work on something with the commission so that he doesn’t have to undergo this new change.The commission did not vote on the recommendation.
There were other requests from the addressing board to change addresses that were approved at the beginning of the year. There will be one more address change recommendation presented to the City Commission.
Mike Flynn, Winchester Municipal Utilities general manager, gave the presentation that was given at WMU’s previous regular meeting about the report on Winchester’s solid waste operations and the “Pay As You Throw” recycling incentive. Paul Rogers with WMU said that with this new method, there is a potential for large cash savings. From the pilot study in Holiday Hills, Rogers said tresidents were recycling 56 percent of their waste. If all of Winchester residents participated, 7,500 tons of waste would be recycled and their would be around $490,000 in potential savings. Burtner said the “Pay As You Throw” method, which would include one trash pickup and one recycling pickup a week, has some real benefits.
“One day a week garbage pickup would make sense and save money,” said Commissioner Kitty Strode.
Rick Beach said that no matter what is changed, the board will not burden citizens by raising any residential rates.
The commission will not vote until there is a master plan.
In other business, the board:
— amended sections in the Winchester Code of Ordinances to regulate the sale and discharge of fireworks.
— added a new section to the Winchester Code of Ordinances concerning fire lane requirements.
— voted to waive the penalties, not the interest, for H&H Medical Transit, Inc. for January payroll taxes.
Contact Kendall Sparks at ksparks@winchestersun.com.
