ONTARIO — The city of Ontario is planning its second annual “Veterans Way” display with submissions now open for Ontario or Springfield Township residents.
Veterans or their family members can fill out the one-page electronic form and submit a photo to abeaver@ontarioohio.org. The form asks for the veteran or active duty military member’s name, branch and rank.
The deadline is Feb. 28.
The Hometown Heroes honored must have resided or currently reside in the City of Ontario or Springfield Township. The city will display the banners from spring until Veteran’s Day, when the honorees or their family members can pick up the banners.
Last year, Mayor Kris Knapp said the city hosted more than 40 banners along Lexington-Springmill Road light poles. The city covers the cost of printing and displaying the banners. Inventory is limited, so nominators should plan to submit their forms early.
“I’m excited to continue the tradition of ‘Veterans Way’ on Lexington-Springmill Road,” Knapp said. “It’s something I love driving by, and a small way the city can recognize our veterans.”
The first veteran honored with a banner last year was Ashland Butcher, who received a special ceremony at a city council meeting.
“All of our veterans are equally important to us and we have great reverence for our veterans of any amount of service any time,” Council president Eddie Gallo said in October 2023.
“It’s not very often that you come across someone with a service record like Ashland’s, so we wanted to do a bit more for him.”
Also at Wednesday’s council meeting, the streets committee announced the roads to be paved in 2025 and the planned pavings for 2026.
This year’s planned roads include Bedford Boulevard, Randallwood Drive, Rosewood Drive between Randallwood and Longview Avenue, Tanglewood Drive, August Drive residential, Benbrandon Court, and Spring Village Lane and Lexington-Springmill Road after sewer line and waterline work.
Planned streets for 2026 are Maple Lane, Zimmerman and Debby lanes, Larry Court, Pearl Street from Shelby-Ontario Road to the bus garage, Oakstone and Ridgestone drives.
Streets committee chair Rose Feagin said the city also aims to pave Lindaire Lane and Teakwood Drive if funds allow.
Knapp said the paving list is “right in line” with a paving analysis the city completed a few years ago.
“We personally drive those and go by our streets department supervisor’s recommendation also,” he said. “Based on the budget we have and water line work we have planned for Lexington-Springmill and Maple Lane, we’re in line with that.”
The streets committee also discussed potential locations for three mobile digital speed signs.
Council voted down a proposed zoning amendment to add a link for conditional uses for mini warehouses to the city’s online design standards.
Following self-storage unit construction by Menards, some council members said they would rather rescind mini warehouses from conditionally allowed uses in business zoning districts.
Economic development committee chair Josh Bradley noted the “Old Ontario” area where council members are considering building a downtown park, is in a business district.
“I understand this is conditionally and we could say no, but I feel like it was a mistake when we allowed it before and I’d rather rescind that use at all, and keep mini warehouses to industrial zones,” he said.
“When you look at industrial and business-zoned districts in the city, that’s 42.5% of our total acreage that mini warehouses could go on. I don’t think that serves our community.”
Council members voted 5-2 against the conditional uses edit in design standards.
Service-safety director Adam Gongwer, who noticed the broken link in the online design standards, said he will ask the law director to prepare legislation to rescind mini warehouses from conditionally allowed uses in the business district.
Ontario council also heard Knapp’s first “State of the City” address Wednesday and discussed legislation proposing an Ontario Community Improvement Corporation and contracting Richland County Development Group for economic development work in the 2025 calendar year.
