ASHLAND – Ashland City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to appoint Dan Lawson to fill the at-large seat on council.
Lawson is Associate Vice President of Corporate Relations at Ashland University, where he has worked in various roles since 2003 and now builds relationships and develops partnerships between corporations and the university.
He also serves on the board of the Ashland Area Chamber of Commerce and volunteers both with United Way of Ashland County and as a volunteer chaplain for the city’s police department.
Lawson fills the unexpired term of Matt Miller, who resigned to assume his job as mayor.
Lawson said he views the council appointment as an opportunity to give something back to a community that has been good to him.
Particularly, Lawson hopes to focus on spurring economic development activity in the area and to part of the city’s master planning process.
“My motto is think regionally, act locally … If you want to be bigger, you have to act bigger,” Lawson said. “You’ve got to look at some of those that are just a few steps ahead of you and look at what they’re doing.”
Lawson was among 10 applicants for the council seat. Four finalists were interviewed, including Lawson, Scott Brown, Christine Box and Matthew Gorrell. The council did not announce their chosen appointee prior to the meeting.
Also, the council had a public hearing on a draft of appropriations for 2018.
Finance director Larry Paxton said the budget document is still under construction and likely will be complete within about a week. The draft can be found on the city’s website.
Along with a summary of all appropriations, the mayor asked Paxton to prepare for council a history of revenues and expenses for Brookside Golf Course dating back to 2008, along with projections for 2018.
The report shows that at current spending and revenue levels, the city would need to transfer $128,851 from the general fund to support the golf course this year. Over the past 10 years, from 2008 through 2017, the city has transferred $1,082,425 from the general fund to the golf course to cover expenses that exceeded revenues.
“We wanted to bring that to your attention because we do have to figure out what direction this group wants to go before we approve our budget, at least that would be what we’d like to see accomplished,” Miller said.
Miller suggested the council consider adding a work session this week to discuss the golf course.
“There are ideas on where we might be able to cut costs, and I think you need to hear some of those ideas,” Miller told the council, adding that there may also be ways to boost revenue.
Miller said he sat down last week with golf course employees Terry Valentine and Billy Christian to talk about the budget, and the pair expressed interest in attending a work session.
Lawson said he would be in favor of having a work session and Workman also expressed interest, but no meeting was set.
Miller also suggested the council consider inviting a representative from the Ohio Attorney General’s office to provide a training on the state’s sunshine laws. Miller said he thought such a meeting would be relevant because of the high number of new members on council.
