Crestline residents can 'learn all about the positive things' at annual update meeting

CRESTLINE — Clayton Herold compares the annual Celebrate Crestline Night to a "state of the village" update.

"I just encourage folks to come out, to learn all about the positive things," said Herold, who's active in the Crestline Community Development Team and serves as president of Crestline Youth Sports. "We have so many great things happening within our municipality, and this has continued since 2020. We have been on such a positive momentum curve here in Crestline from where we were years ago. We're just looking for people to come learn more about what's going on and then we're looking for people to join the effort."

The free event, presented by the Crestline Railroad Community Center, will begin at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 26, in the Crestline High School cafetorium.

The village had its first community update meeting before the pandemic hit in January 2020, "as a way to engage our community," Herold said. Usually, about 100 people attend.

"This year we pushed it back to April, just for some better weather," he said. "The last several times we've had, it's been in January and the weather's just been bad those days. So we're hoping for a large turnout next Wednesday."

During the meeting, a slate of speakers will discuss all of the positive things happening in the community, Herold said. He'll speak on behalf of Crestline Youth Sports. Organizers also will encourage residents join the Crestline Community Development Team, "to get more people to help us make more positive impacts in our community."

"Every time we do this, we also try to get new speakers to speak on things in Crestline," Herold said. "So this year we've got David Zak coming over from the Crawford Partnership. He's going to talk about what the Partnership's doing to help out Crestline. We've got Julie Rossington, who's a board member at the Crestline Historical Society, and she's going to talk about all the great things that are happening there. We've got Molly Belcik, she's the president of the Crestline Athletic Boosters Club. She's going to talk about all the efforts the booster club's doing to support the the athletes in our schools."

Other scheduled speakers are Carolyn Helbert and Erin Jones, board members of the Crestline Community Development Team; Linda Horning-Pitt, the village's mayor; Corey Spackey, village administrator; Matthew Henderson, Crestline school superintendent; Miranda Jones, executive director of the Galion-Crestline Chamber of Commerce; and Courtney Moody, activity coordinator for the Crawford County Council on Aging.

Highlights from last year will be discussed

"It's been a busy year for the village," Herold said. "I think some of the highlights that we're going to talk about is, of course, securing the funding that we need for our our new wastewater treatment plant, which is going to allow the village to grow, once that project is completed. We've got the arch that was fully funded last year; that's going to be installed here soon, which is going to be basically the archway into the village. We're really going to highlight our downtown area."

Pillars for the new, lighted arch that will welcome visitors to the village's downtown were installed last year, he said. The sides of the arch will read "Seltzer Station" and it have Crestline's train engine logo at the top. The village contributed to the project, but the majority of the fuding was from the private sector, Herold said.

Another highlight of the last year has been the opening of many new businesses, including Joey's Pub & Cafe, two new Airbnbs in the downtown area and the Color Bar, a new salon that opened in a vacant building out by Kelly Park, he said. "It's just nice seeing a lot of the older buildings being reused for something different in Crestline, which just makes our community better," Herold said.

Downtown, Seltzer Street was resurfaced last year, he said. "It's just small improvements like that that just makes your downtown look better."

Event will be livestreamed on Facebook

People attending the meeting should use the event entrance at Crestline High School, which is behind the building. "That will lead you into the cafetorium," Herold said. "There's ample parking for folks there."

Light refreshments will be provided, according to a news release about the event. There will be time at the end of the event for questions and comments from the audience. Community members will have the opportunity to fill out postcards to support the planned Amtrak stop in Crestline. People who aren't able to attend on Wednesday will have the option to watch online, Herold said: The event will be livestreamed on the Crestline Community Development Team's Facebook page by Rock Solid Media.

"They are going to take control of our Facebook page and have it there, livestreamed, so the folks that can't make it to the event can watch it live and then it will also be available after the event, so the folks that couldn't either watch it live or be there can view it," Herold said. Rock Solid Media also will create some videos that can be used for promotional purposes for Crestline.

ggoble@gannett.com

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This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Annual 'Celebrate Crestline Night' will focus on the positives