Mansfield hopes to ‘go big’ in federal fund requests for North End road improvement efforts:
GALLERY: Chippendale and bikini races at Snow Trails:
Carol J. “Davis” Grogg:
Mansfield hopes to “go big” road projects on the city’s north side
Mansfield hopes to “go big” with two potentially federally-funded, multi-million dollar road construction projects on the city’s north side.
On Tuesday, the city’s Board of Control will be asked to contract with K.E. McCartney & Associates to do preliminary design work and help with an application for about $2.5 million in federal grants.
Those grants would be used to just design the two projects. And each of those projects would cost far more than $5 million to construct.
One would install a large, single-lane roundabout to “improve the connection of North Main and North Diamond streets” to improve traffic flow and to also create a multi-use path that would extend the Richland B&O Bike Trail from North Lake Park to Main Street.
The second would improve and widen Ohio 13 from the northern U.S. 30 ramp to Airport Road, including a left-hand turn lane along the corridor and installing a large, single-lane roundabout at the intersection with Harrington Memorial Road.
On Friday, City engineer Bob Bianchi said the city hopes to get funds through the federal Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity program, which helps communities carry out big-ticket projects like these.
Here’s Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on what this program aims to accomplish. The federal government has infused $1.5 billion into the program for fiscal year 2022. And Bianchi says they’re raising their hands.
If grant funds are approved, the city would then apply for additional grants to do the actual construction. The hope is if the federal program deems the projects worthy of design funds that it would also see them suitable construction funds. The deadline for applications is April 14 and selections will be announced no later than Aug. 12.
Civil War-era politician Edmund Gibson Ross called Ashland home
Next, some local history. Did you know that Ashland-born politician, Edmund Gibson Ross, was a politician who represented Kansas after the American Civil War and was later governor of the New Mexico Territory?
He started life as a newspaper typesetter and printer and was an anti-slavery Democrat before joining the Republican Party. After moving to Milwaukee, Ross was one of several Milwaukee residents who came to the aid of Joshua Glover, an escaped slave who had been recaptured and was being held at the local jail.
The group stormed the jail, freed Glover, and enabled his escape to Canada. Ross then moved to Kansas in an effort to make sure the state remained free as it entered the Union. As Senator from Kansas, his vote against convicting President Andrew Johnson of “high crimes and misdemeanors” allowed Johnson to stay in office by the margin of one vote.
As the seventh of seven Republican U.S. Senators to break with his party, he proved to be the person whose decision would result in conviction or acquittal. When he chose the latter, the vote of 35–19 in favor of Johnson’s conviction failed to reach the required two-thirds vote. Ross lost his bid for re-election two years later.
Snow Trails 61st ski carnival offered a chilly ride
Carol Grogg
