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Editor’s Note: This is part one of a series looking at what Northeast Ohio communities are facing in 2022 and what they may be facing in 2023.
Eastlake Mayor Denis Morley has seen the town’s businesses bounce back this year in the post-coronavirus crisis.
“It’s still difficult for businesses to try to find employees and keep employees, but it’s been another good year,” he said. “Our businesses have helped the city by coming back.”
Among the highlights of the year in Eastlake is the opening of Culver’s at 34820 Vine St. It is also home to Washington Grove and Taft Pointe residential developments. So far, Washington has only two lots, which will likely sell soon, Morley said.
“Taft – they just started advertising and I know three or four of these lots are already sold,” he said, noting that homes are being built on the lake.
A Dunkin’ Donuts and BigBee Coffee are coming to Eastlake, and a small auto repair company opened on Vine Street this year, Morley said, with interest in the city.
Eastlake has spent a lot of money repairing roads over the past 10 years – nearly $2.2 million.
“We will continue to look at road repairs,” Morley said.
After pulling out because of the pandemic, the Lake County captains were among those who returned. The city is waiting to get attendance numbers for minor league baseball games in 2023.
The Eastlake Concert Series and its markets have done well in 2022.
“We plan to add a few more concerts for the summer of 2023,” Morley said.
The city is currently working on its budget and looking at equipment.
“We’ve hired two more police officers and a serviceman this year, so we’re going backwards in our hiring,” Morley said. “It’s been slow because it’s been hard for us to get workers.”
The ongoing challenges will be with supply chains as the city has major projects ahead – its sewer lines, Waverley Road secondary sewers and all water mains along Vine Street.
“We’ve been working on this splash pad for two to three years,” Morley said. “We ended up ordering equipment for that. CT[consultants]will put together a package to shrink the building and put in a new building and pump station for the pad.”
As for Eastlake’s budget, it was standard, Morley said.
“We don’t take it for granted that money will continue to be there,” he said. “We don’t have any money to pay for these things” We always budget because we prefer to stick to a budget rather than going at the end of the year. We’ve been consistent throughout my tenure and I think we’ve gotten used to the operation and we’ll continue to do that.
Compared to recent years, Eastlake is doing much better financially, but it’s still important to remember that some revenue streams may not always be available, Morley said.
“We haven’t seen the kind of flooding we’ve seen with the coronavirus,” he said. “Inflation has been hard on business, so we have a bit of a headwind going into 2023. We put together a tight budget and don’t anticipate what our revenue should be.”
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