POST Wednesday, June 26, 2024 • Vol. 17 No. 3 • FREE
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Community News from Middlefield, Parkman, Huntsburg and Surrounding Areas
OR CURRENT RESIDENT
Middlef ield Cardinal Schools Joining Northeastern Athletic Conference in Fall 2025
By Alan Kornspan sports@karlovecmedia.com
The Cardinal Huskies will be joining the Northeastern Athletic Conference (NAC) at the start of the 2025-26 school year. Cardinal will become the third school in the recent past to leave the Chagrin Valley Conference (CVC) and move into the NAC. Fairport Harbor joined the NAC in the fall of 2020, and the Grand Valley Mustangs will begin NAC
play this fall. With the addition of Cardinal in the fall of 2025, the NAC will have 13 teams: Badger, Bristol, Bloomfield, Cardinal, Chalker, Fairport Harbor, Grand Valley, Lordstown, Mathews, Maplewood, Pymatuning Valley, Saint John and Windham. Cardinal Athletic Director Jimmy Soltis explained the main reason Cardinal decided to join the Northeast Athletic Conference (NAC): enrollment has been trending down for the past decade.
“The NAC just provides a better fit with the size school we are, the sports we offer, (and) the competitiveness,” Soltis said. “The NAC provides a lot for us, and I think our kids are going to benefit a lot from it. … I think it is the right thing to do for them.” Although Cardinal will move to the NAC from the CVC, Soltis emphasized that Cardinal teams will still compete against teams from the CVC. Specifically, Cardinal teams will face NAC opponents twice per
season and CVC rivals only once. “Right now we play everybody in our CVC division twice, and I play all the NAC schools once, for the most part in all of our team sports,” Soltis said. “It's just going to flip — we'll play all the NAC schools twice. “Our non-conference will be the six to eight CVC schools that we routinely play.” That means Cardinal will continue to play Berkshire, even though See Cardinal • Page 2
INSIDE
Middlefield Village
Lot Consolidation Could Lead to Warehouse Construction Contamination near Proposed Housing Concerns Official
By Ann Wishart
ann@karlovecmedia.com
SCREENSHOT
Middlefield Village Planning Commission approved consolidating two parcels for a proposed warehouse near Madison and Kinsman roads.
Middlefield Village Planning and Zoning Commission members voted on two potential projects in the southeast sector of the village during their June 11 meeting. Zoning Inspector John Boksansky reported Bonner Ohio Properties LTD has proposed consolidating two properties to create one 44-acre parcel near the intersection of East High Street and Madison Road. The Geauga County Tax Map Department approved the consoli-
dation, but the village engineer has not signed off on it, yet, Boksansky said. “It’s a rather large parcel next to (Geauga Concrete),” he said, adding the next concerns revolve around access using the private Industry Drive off Madison or creating a curb cut onto East High. Mayor Ben Garlich said a warehouse exceeding 750,000 square feet is being planned to accommodate product storage at Diversified Plastics Inc., formerly Dillen Properties LTD, at 16455 East High Street. “It’s a very large conglomerate. (The warehouse) guarantees the business will be here for a long time,” he said, adding the facility would employ more than 100 work-
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ers. The commission voted in favor of the lot consolidation if the village engineer approves it. Developers of the proposed Smallwood subdivision requested an easement from the village for two retention basins, one on either end of the 24-home, cul-de-sac off South State Avenue. Commission member Jim Linberg noted the residential development would be adjacent to The Middlefield Industrial Complex operated by Third Dimension Inc., which is a super fund site, making the parcel to the north questionable for residential development. A pump-and-treat program has been processing the contaminated groundwater there. See Zoning • Page 2
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