Dec. 24—EDITOR'S NOTE — This is one in a series looking at what Northeast Ohio communities experienced in 2022 and what is facing them in 2023.

In a post-coronavirus setting this year, Eastlake Mayor Dennis Morley has observed the city's businesses bounce back.

"It's still tough for businesses to try to get employees and retain employees, but other than that, it's been a good year," he said. "With our businesses bouncing back, it's helped the city."

Among the highlights for Eastlake over the year was Culver's opening at 34820 Vine St., as well as the Washington Grove and Taft Pointe residential developments. As of now, Washington may only have two lots left, which could possibly get sold soon, Morley said.

"Taft — they had only started advertising and I know that three or four of those lots have already sold," he said, noting that homes also are being built on the lake.

A Dunkin' Donuts and a Biggby Coffee will be coming to Eastlake, and a small engine repair company opened on Vine Street this year, a need in the city, Morley said.

Eastlake has also spent more money on fixing roads than it has in the last 10 years — almost $2.2 million.

"We're going to continue to look at road repairs," Morley said.

After being off due to the pandemic, the Lake County Captains were among those that bounced back. The city is looking forward to getting attendance numbers at the minor league baseball games up in 2023.

Eastlake's concert series and its markets also did well in 2022.

"We plan on adding a few more concerts for the summer of 2023," Morley said.

The city is currently working on its budget now and is looking into equipment.

"We've hired a couple more policemen this year and a service person, so we're getting back in the swing of things for our hiring," Morley said. "It's been slow because it's been tough for us to find employees also."

The challenges that will be ongoing are going to be with the supply chains as the city has bigger projects ahead — its sewer lines, the second phase of Waverly Road's sanitary sewers going in and all the water lines on Vine Street.

"We've been working on this splash pad for two to three years," Morley said. "We finally ordered the equipment for that. CT (Consultants)'s going to put together a package for demoing the building and putting a new building in, and a pump station for the pad."

As for Eastlake's budget, it's been leveling off, Morley said.

"We're not going to take for granted that money is going to continue to be there," he said. "We've always budgeted tight because we'd rather budget tight than go, 'We don't have any money to pay for these things' at the end of the year. We've stayed tight through my whole term and I think this is how we're used to operating, and we're going to continue to do that."

Compared to recent years, Eastlake is doing much better financially, but it will still be mindful that some of the income that comes in might not be there all the time, Morley said.

"We didn't see the dip we saw through the (coronavirus)," he said. "Inflation has been tough on businesses, so we're still a little leery going into 2023. We'll put a tight budget together and not overestimate what our income should be."