Mayor Looks to Both the Past and the Future in State of the City Address

Mayor Jerry N. Hruby encouraged residents and business owners to keep Brecksville’s “master plan” in sight even as they look to attract new businesses to the city in Wednesday’s State of the City address. 

Hruby faced a full crowd for the speech, which was sponsored by the Brecksville Chamber of Commerce and held at the .

The major themes were the same as Tuesday’s “,” with economic development and the school district’s levy at the top of the list, but Hruby went into more specifics on finances and development plans.  

“Our better days are coming again,” Hruby said near the end of his speech.

Business and Citizen of the Year

Wednesday’s event also included two community awards from the Chamber of Commerce for the business and citizen of the year, presented by chamber President Rachel Torchia. 

The Business of the Year went to the owners of , Carol and Ron Kwiatkowski. Carol said one of her daughters had told her to come, saying that she—the daughter—was receiving an award.  Torchia noted that the long-running, family-owned business was very involved in the community.

The Citizen of the Year was Mike Gorman, the Brecksville regional president of Western Reserve Bank, who Torchia said was a relatively new resident. He and his wife relocated to the city about five years ago, and he soon became involved in organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Schools Foundation and the Bicentennial Committee. Torchia noted that Gorman even served as the president of the chamber shortly after his arrival. 

“I’m very humbled,” Gorman said when he received his award. After the speech, he noted that the award is usually reserved for people who have spent a great deal of time in the city. 

After the awards were given, Torchia introduced the mayor as a man who “lives and breathes Brecksville.” Hruby gave his own accolades to the winners and introduced some individuals around the room, like City Council and Board of Education members, before beginning his formal address and slideshow presentation. 

Finances, Future Projects 

The mayor showed some of the ways the city had cut costs in recent years—trimming nearly $4 million from 2009 expenditures to 2010, he said—and noted that the percentages for spending were pretty even from year to year. With more than two decades of experience as the city’s mayor, he would know. He also praised the more than 10 businesses that moved or began to move to Brecksville from 2009 to 2010, such as truenorth, and made note of businesses that expanded. He encouraged business owners who were looking to grow their companies or having trouble in some way to approach the city for potential solutions.  

The city’s 2011 priorities include lots of projects that affect relatively small segments of the city at a time: work on local , plans for a new salt storage facility, improvements on  and renovations for the . 

There are also larger projects that will need to be addressed, like what will become of the soon-to-be-vacant . The center generated more than $2 million in income tax for the city last year, Hruby said, and is responsible for more than 1,000 jobs. The majority of employees will be out of the building by the end of the summer, with the rest likely to leave by the end of the calendar year. 

Hruby said that while there are ideas—the city hopes to purchase the property, creating a recreation and child care center in the middle and developing the rest for business—nothing is finalized. He noted that the same stands for projects in the area of State Route 82 and Interstate 77, and that the city plans to stick to the primarily office-laboratory—not retail—zoning for both properties. 

And like on Tuesday, Hruby invited Superintendent Scot Prebles to speak on behalf of the district. The district has a on May 3. Prebles talked about the many accomplishments of the district’s students and shared some of the ways the district has been cutting spending. 

“The greatest thing we have going for us in Brecksville is our school district,” Hruby said.

The mayor also highlighted the city’s varied amenities for residents, from the presence of the and the to the to the war memorials on Public Square. He also mentioned some of the many events going on throughout the year, like the Civil War re-enactment and the production of The Music Man.