Central Ohio Matters
Central Ohio Matters is a podcast where host Michelle Gatchell discusses the issues shaping Central Ohio's future. Each episode features in-depth conversations with local leaders, visionaries, and changemakers driving progress in Central Ohio. These conversations provide insights into the challenges facing our communities and the solutions being developed to move them forward.
Central Ohio Matters covers government policies, healthcare challenges, housing and business developments, transportation solutions, education, and innovation. It is your guide to understanding and engaging with the pulse of Central Ohio.
You can listen to Central Ohio Matters on WVXG 95.1 FM (Marion and Morrow Counties) and WDLR 96.7 FM, 1270 AM (Delaware, Franklin, Marion, and Union Counties).
Also, find it on your favorite podcast streaming sites.
Central Ohio Matters
Future Growth: How a Rural Ohio County (Morrow) Plans for Development While Protecting Farmland
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Rural communities don't always get the spotlight, but Morrow County offers surprising depth and forward-thinking leadership worth your attention. Commissioner Tim Siegfried takes us beyond the cornfields to reveal the delicate balance of preserving rural character while embracing strategic growth.
The county stands at a geographic crossroads, potentially impacted by major infrastructure projects, including a Highway 23 bypass that would connect to Interstate 71 through southern Morrow County. Located within the crucial 40-mile radius of Intel's massive development, the county's leadership has strategically positioned growth opportunities at the 61-71 and 95-71 interstate exchanges, where essential utilities are already in place.
Beyond development talk, Morrow County shines with unexpected treasures. The nationally-recognized Mid-Ohio Race Track draws substantial crowds throughout summer. Flying Horse Farm provides extraordinary camp experiences for children with developmental and physical challenges. The Cardinal Shooting Center hosts national competitions that fill local campgrounds. Meanwhile, infrastructure improvements continue with a $7 million highway department building nearing completion and a $4.3 million jail renovation project on the horizon.
Commissioner Siegfried emphasizes the county's commitment to concentrated, thoughtful development rather than scattered growth that might compromise agricultural lands. As businesses like Groovy Plants Ranch continue expanding and the county fair celebrates its remarkable 175th anniversary this year, Morrow County demonstrates how rural communities can honor their heritage while crafting a sustainable future.
Listen for insights into how small counties navigate development pressures, balance economic opportunities with preservation of character, and leverage their unique assets to create community pride and visitor appeal.
Introduction to Morrow County
Speaker 1Welcome to Central Ohio Matters, the podcast where we delve into the issues that shape Central Ohio's future. Each episode features in-depth conversations with local leaders, visionaries and changemakers driving progress in our region. These conversations offer insights into the challenges our communities face and the solutions being crafted to move them forward. Here's your host, michelle Gatchel.
Speaker 2So, tim, I want to thank you for joining me for Central Ohio Matters. You are the chair of the Morrow County. Commissioners, how long have you been a commissioner?
Speaker 3I'm just starting my second term, so I've been here for four years.
Speaker 2So you're getting the lay of the land.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 2It's good to have someone repeat, because they know what's going on and how to make it work.
Speaker 3But every day is still different, so you never know what you're going to face day to day.
Speaker 2Well, so you know for Morrow County. If you were to explain Morrow County to someone that may be thinking about coming here, how would you explain Morrow County?
Speaker 3you explain Morrow County. Morrow County is a rural community that is a lot of farming, a lot of just rural activities, but we've got a lot of hidden gems that people don't realize that we have within the county. So that's sort of something that Morrow County kind of gets overlooked at for some reason. We're definitely looked at as a rural county in central Ohio, but we have more to offer.
Speaker 2So I kind of want to start like some of the news headlines and then, like, narrow it down into specifics with Morrow County. You know something that we're seeing in the news a lot right now or maybe not right this month, but um is the 23 corridor and a 23 bypass. Could that be possibly going through morrow county?
Speaker 3it could possibly go through southern morrow county as it hooks up 23 to 71, but they've had a lot of different meetings about that through ODOT and everything and it's kind of all over the place. There are two possible routes through that could possibly travel through Morrow County, both in southern, in the southern part of the county.
Speaker 2Is this? Because 23 is just getting too populated?
Speaker 3It's too congested from Waldo South because of going through Delaware. I forget what they said there were 60-some traffic lights or something. Oh yeah, so it was too much stop and go for the truck traffic trying to get a straight path from Toledo down 23.
Speaker 1Pretty much to.
Speaker 3Portland, I guess you know. But Delaware is definitely the area where the problem is. So they're looking to see They'd come down as far as Waldo in Marion County and then that's where it starts County, and then that's where it starts. So they're trying to look at 229. Of course cuts straight across over towards Marengo and over towards 71. So that's one of the possibilities. 529 is the other one they talked about, which would go through Cargillton. So I'm not sure, either of those are totally feasible options, but those are two of the things they've talked about.
Speaker 2And so does that cut through farmland.
Speaker 3Does it cut through. There'd be a lot of farmland in both those paths that would be taken away both in, well partially in, maybe Marion County, delaware County, murrow County all of them would suffer some of that.
Speaker 2Wow, okay, well, and then the other big news story, of course, has been going on for now a couple years is Intel coming to the area and you know talking highways and being in proximity? Are you seeing growth yet from the auxiliary companies that are coming into the area for that?
Highway Development and Intel Impact
Speaker 3We have not seen the growth yet, but we've heard the speculation. We are within that 40-mile area, which puts us in a target area, mile area, which puts us in a target area. And of course that would incorporate both of our interstate exchanges, which is where we're trying to focus our growth, both at the 61 and the 95 exits. So those would both fall within the area of the intel growth. So we have a couple of industrial parks within that area that could benefit from from that quite a bit.
Speaker 2Yeah, and we're talking 61 and 71. So these are intersections on 71, where the flow of traffic can go back and forth Exactly exactly Okay, and so does Morrow County have. You said industrial centers, but do you have a mall or a big box store in the area?
Speaker 3No, no. In Mount Gilead we have several little private family-style grocery stores, like in Chesterville or Johnsville or Iberia, but nothing major. We have no major development like that at this point.
Speaker 2So the other thing that news is talking about a lot, especially around this Intel thing, is affordable housing being available. Do you have areas that you would you're working on, that are in development for adding housing?
Speaker 3Nothing, nothing under development. We do have a couple of units of apartment buildings out at 95 and 71 that are I think the second set of them are almost complete. There are a lot of individual homes going up throughout the county, but no major development. We haven't had a couple of developers come in with interest but it hasn't gone anywhere. It's still because you have to look at the infrastructure. You have to have water, you have to have sewer, you have to have electricity, you have to have gas. You have to have all those things in place for a major development to happen. So, and again, our concentration has been at the 61-71 exit and the 95-71 exit, which is where some of this growth is taking place right now. And we do have sewer, water, gas and electricity at those places. So it would be ideal. It's just that we haven't found necessarily a right developer right now to run with it.
County Infrastructure Projects
Speaker 2Okay, so let's talk about some development that is going on right now. You guys are getting ready to wrap up a new highway patrol building.
Speaker 3It's our county highway department building.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 3A little bit over a seven million dollar project that's located out on home road near the sheriff's office, right behind the ODOT building that sits on 42 there. The ODOT building that sits on 42 there. They're probably within a month or so of being complete and we'll start moving our county highway department into that out of two or three different locations right now. It'll be nice to have them all in one spot where they can disperse from, instead of being in two or three different spots and having to go to a different building to get this done, or you know so that that part of it will be, and eventually it'll be economical for the county too, because you won't be running all over the place to get things done yeah, yeah, so another county building that is has been voted on as far as changes to be made, is your jail.
Speaker 3Uh-huh, we have a. We we just got a. Let me see 4, 4.3 million grant. Oh nice yeah to make some improvements in the jail on the correctional side of it, and possibly even an addition to it to put some new cells in. That would benefit the county quite a bit. All right on the same property where our current jail is. So there won't be any disruption of service or anything.
Speaker 2You'll still be able to use it as a jail while you're building additions.
Speaker 3Right, and we're in the preliminary stages of this grant as far as we're in the development stage and everything.
Speaker 2So there won't be any construction, probably for another, I'd say six to eight months, okay, yeah so when this finishes, are you going to be able to take in more people in the jail, hire more people for the jail? What is it? How's it going to benefit?
Speaker 3it, it will, it will actually do both. Um, they'll be. We have a dorm, dormitory-style jail right now where all the inmates are together. This new addition will give us the opportunity to have more individualized, to be able to separate them better, so there will be a slight increase in the number that we can hold. There will be a slight increase in the number that we can hold and with the increase, in that, you always have to have the right personnel to be there for the guards and the correctional officers.
Speaker 2So yeah, and is it a male female jail?
Speaker 3It has both Right.
Speaker 2Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 3Any other developments going on in the county. We just finished up a little bit over a $2 million grant we got from the state of Ohio for our sewer component down at what we call Samoka, which is southern Murrow County, again down by the 6171 exit, to increase the sewer capacity down there to hopefully benefit some additional growth in that area, both in housing and in retail and everything. So looking for great things down there based on that. But we just finished that development so we have a more modern facility down there to help out in that. And then of course we have a sewer plant at Chesterville which would be at the 9571 exit. Looking at the possibility of developing that further if we continue to have growth out there. It's a system that we can add on to. We have a sewer system in Johnsville that again we can continue to add on to up there as we continue to get development elsewhere, whether it's housing or retail.
Speaker 2Nice. So for Morrow County, you said you had hidden gems. Let's talk about the hidden gems. Okay, let's talk about the hidden gems Okay.
Speaker 3We have. A lot of people forget that Mid-Ohio Race Track is in Morrow County. It's in the northern part of the county. It's so close to Mansfield a lot of people think that's where it is. But it's actually located in Morrow County and it has several activities during the course of the summer between uh car races, motorcycle races and everything that's out there, and they get quite a quite a good attendance out there at that did they just increase or make it bigger last year, or am I imagining that for some reason?
Speaker 2I think I heard that mid ohio Racetrack had expanded.
Hidden Gems of Morrow County
Speaker 3I don't know that they expanded their racetrack or not, but they've expanded their capabilities of the number of races. Maybe that they're doing Could be what it was. We have the Flying Horse Farm, which is an area where developmentally handicapped children or kids with other types of physical handicaps come for like summer camp type activity. But it's a beautiful facility and people come from statewide to be there to receive the services that they offer. And it's a camp facility. It's just unbelievable the services they offer, for the capability to serve the kids that they serve.
Speaker 2It's called Flying Horse.
Speaker 3Farm yeah, Flying Horse Farm yeah.
Speaker 2And can only Ohioans go there?
Speaker 3I don't know if they take. I couldn't give you a true answer for that. I don't know.
Speaker 2We'll have to look it up online.
Speaker 3Yeah, Of course we have the Cardinal Shooting Center down at 6171, which is a nationwide. They have shooting activities down there that they pull in hundreds and hundreds of people at those things, and so that's quite an activity that they have down there that they run throughout the summer and so literally that's like competitions and shooting ranges that people can pay to shoot at. Right.
Speaker 2All summer long.
Speaker 3Right, and there's a campground right next door, right cardinal campground, right next, yeah, so a lot of the people that attend there do come in with their campers and fill that campground up and every campground around us during those times, because it's it's quite a, it's quite a draw. They've had national competitions there and statewide competitions, so it's quite a facility.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'll have to check it out. I've never been Any other gems we should be talking about.
Speaker 3Well, we have a park system. Within our county. There are six different parks. They're kind of the hidden gems because a lot of people don't even realize that they're available. Yeah, but some of them are smaller areas where you can just go and walk and relax, areas where you can just go and walk and relax the Flying Squirrel we've got a lot of flying animals here.
Speaker 2That's what I was wondering.
Speaker 3The Flying Squirrel Park is actually larger than our state park here in Mount Gilead and has trails and a lodge. That is again, if people didn't realize it was there. It's quite a facility.
Speaker 2So you have a state park and then you have your county parks, Then we have our county park district yeah, the state park, and then you have your county parks.
Speaker 3Then we have our yeah, our, county district park district. Yeah, yeah, the state park is, uh is right outside of montgillard and it's of course it's called the montgillard state park and they, of course, they have camping and and hiking and things I like that there you mentioned that it's a rural community.
Speaker 2Are there certain farming ag crops that you guys focus?
Speaker 3on. Probably the majority of the crops around here are corn, soybeans, wheat. A lot of hay baling goes on throughout the county.
Speaker 2Good for feed as well as Halloween.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2Do you have much ecotourism?
Speaker 3We have a tourism board. That's just really we're trying to get it started, to get to of this, like I said, these hidden gems out to the public so that they know that these things are going on With the rural part of our county and everything. We do have a lot of festivals and stuff within the county that are held on a regular basis. Cardington has a couple throughout the year, I think Marengo does, magillian does Chesterville, and then there are some farms that have like theme type seasonal activities, like in the fall or something.
Speaker 3We have two or three that are pretty substantial as far as the way they're set up and you can go out and spend the day there just going through mazes and things like that, the famous corn mazes and things like that. You know, it's the famous corn mazes they have. We have a couple corn mazes that they've set up.
Speaker 2Yes, I love those things, so check out morrow county for your fall fun that's right absolutely um, what are? What are some of the festivals? Are they like corn festivals, sweet corn festival?
Speaker 3Mount Pilead used to have a sweet corn festival. I don't know, let's see. There's a fall festival in Marengo. There is a summer festival in Cardington which was sort of an anniversary of when a tornado went through several years ago and really devastated that town. So now they have a yearly celebration in their park area there in Cardington. Melgillid has different activities. They have car shows and different things, sometimes down to fairgrounds, sometimes through the main streets of the village.
Speaker 2So Mount Gilead's a village.
Speaker 3Mount Gilead is the county seat. So, it's right.
Speaker 2yes, so your county fair is the 175th year this year is going to celebrate the 175th year of the county fair.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's going to be a big deal this year.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's a fun could be a big deal this year. So yeah, that's a that's a fun thing to celebrate. I mean, you know, that's our community at its best.
Speaker 3That'll run the last week of August up through Labor Day September 1st, so that's it's always a fun time here in the county yeah, are you working at it? Yeah, we, matter of fact, we just met with the fair board yesterday about, uh, some things going on and they've got they've got quite a few big plans for this year, since it's a big year for them. So we're looking forward to seeing what all comes out of it.
Speaker 2So if someone in the community wants to learn more about what's going on, do you have public meetings? When are your meetings?
Local Industries and Businesses
Speaker 3The commissioners have two meetings a week. We meet on Monday and Wednesday. Our sessions are at 9 o'clock in the morning. Our business meetings the commissioners are available anytime. If anybody wants to make a phone call or stop in just for a chat, we're here almost every day of the week.
Speaker 2So always encouraging people to, if they have concerns or if they have questions or anything to let us know and what are some of the other industries that are located in Morrow County?
Speaker 3We have the Dollar Tree Warehouse, which is our biggest employer.
Speaker 2I've been to many Dollar Trees.
Speaker 3I like them. We have Yataka down in Cardington which is a parts manufacturing making parts for a lot of Honda parts and different things like that that they make down there. We have HPM Yataka or HPM up in Iberia which is again a manufacturing plant. It's a little bit smaller as far as what they produce. We have some smaller businesses like the Lincoln Center in Fulton and Marego Fabrication that do the Lincoln Center A lot of. You'll see. If you go by there you'll see what I would say would be like dump truck style trucks that they can commercially make a different attachment for trucks for your fire departments or something like that, that they can fabricate those into many different types of trucks that they can meet up with. Let's see.
Speaker 2I know Groovy Plants Ranch. I've been there a bunch of times and watched it. They just seem to be doubling their size this year.
Speaker 3They are growing unbelievably. You go down there from what started in a little building. They have taken over much of County Road 15 down there. On most sides where they have, they've restructured their parking this year so that you're parking everybody's parking on the same side with all the greenhouses. Now you don't have to cross the road so that's a. That's a nice, nice addition. They have done wonderful things down there and it's really it's an unbelievable business yeah so everybody loves plants they do mason white.
Speaker 3They know of groovy plants, so it's really uh, it's really become quite an operation down there very nice, and do you have any other new businesses that are coming in?
Speaker 3Younger businesses, I should say like that we have several other small businesses around that continue to grow. We have a lot of bed and breakfast in the county. Oh you do, oh fun, especially up towards the northern part of the county where the racetrack is. There's a lot of bed and breakfast up there that entertain those people when they come in for the races. We have several venues throughout the county that offer space for weddings or reunions or different things like that. They seem to be popping up all over the place, so we have quite a few of those. We've got four real strong, solid libraries in the county libraries in the county Basically six school districts if you take our four major school districts of Highland, cardington, montgillard and Northmoor, and then throw in Gilead, christian, and then we have the Tomorrow Center in Cardington. So they're all very, very big, well-run school district. So we've got a lot to offer in Morrow County.
Future Growth and Finding Information
Speaker 2Yeah, so what's next? What should people be watching out for in Morrow County?
Speaker 3I think we're eventually. I mean, it's almost inevitable that we're going to grow because of everything that's going on around us, but we're trying to concentrate that growth in certain areas. We don't want a Walmart springing up in the middle of a cornfield, you know and taking away.
Speaker 3We'd rather have it in a concentrated area. So that's what we're working on. We've worked with a lot of developers. There's been a lot of them that come in and looked at us and they kind of nod and they move on, but we have a strong feeling that some of them are coming back. It's just that it's a very long process that you go through in developing any of these things, whether they're housing developments or retail developments or anything else.
Speaker 2Very nice. Well, Tim, I want to thank you so much for joining me today and letting me know what's going on in Morrow County.
Speaker 3Absolutely.
Speaker 2And tell people how they can find out more information. Do you have a website, a Facebook page?
Speaker 3We have the Morrow County website, which is you can just simply look up morrowcountycom or gov and a page that covers all of the county officials, and then there are sections of that that break out into economic development and all the other things that are of interest, and everybody's email address is on there so they can contact any of the elected officials or any of the people involved within the county and we can get back to them and share anything we can. We do have a problem in Morrill County in the fact that we don't have our newspaper is very limited now. We have a weekly newspaper and so it's harder to get information out to everybody. Yeah, and so it's harder to get information out to everybody.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 3So are you posting things on a Facebook page or where can people look? We post things on our website through the county and try to keep out. All of our commissioner sessions, for example, are posted on there and they can go on and see the recorded sessions and see what's going on through the business part of it. And like I said, each one of the elected officials have a page connection to that that they can see what's going on the auditor's department, the sheriff's department, the engineer's department or anything else and it's morrowcountygov. Right.
Speaker 2All right, well, thanks again for joining me, tim. We'll have to have you back on and get an update in another quarter or so.
Speaker 3All right, sounds very good.
Speaker 1Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to this episode of Central Ohio Matters. Be sure to like, share and download. We cover government policies, healthcare challenges, housing and business developments, transportation solutions, education and innovation. If you know of a good story we should be talking about, go to the radio station website and fill out a contact form Directed to Michelle Gatchel, host of Central Ohio Matters. Thank you.