Category Archives: Local Services

Cleveland Clinic

At a cost of $71 million, the Cleveland Clinic opened the 190,000-square-foot Twinsburg Family Health & Surgery Center in June of 2011. Located off Darrow Road, just a short jaunt from I-480, the glistening new edifice brought the Cleveland Clinic, employer of the masses, to the people of Twinsburg. The Clinic, known to employ more workers than any other entity in the state, was slated to bring approximately three hundred jobs to the area when the new campus opened.

The facility was originally scheduled to open in late 2009, but progress was delayed due to “economic pressure,” according to a May 2009 Plain Dealer article. Environmental concerns were also taken into account with regard to the wetlands on which the campus was built. The same article stated, “The Clinic had requested to fill more than three acres of wetlands and 4,300 feet of streams, including some rare cold water streams and high-quality wetland. Under its revised plan, construction will not directly impact high-quality wetlands and streams, according to the EPA.”

Area Police Departments

Glenn R. Osborn, the first police chief in Twinsburg, is reported to have said: “It has always been my firm conviction that there is no more certain barrier to crime than efficient local policing supported by an enlightened, cooperative citizenry. Community respect and assistance are so vital to the success of law enforcement [and] are achieved only through unified police and public effort.” One need look no further than the three communities to find the truth in this statement.

Prior to splitting into three separate entities, the three communities were policed by the Twinsburg Township constables. Twinsburg in the early years of policing has been compared to Andy Griffith’s Mayberry. It was a rural farm town where almost everyone knew everyone else and crime was a rarity.

 

Twinsburg Constable force in the early 1950s before the Village and Township split.

 

When the City of Twinsburg split from the Township and started its own police department on March 4, 1955, Glenn R. Osborn was named police chief for the newly formed Twinsburg Police Department. Osborn and patrolman Otto Clarvat were the first two full-time officers for the Twinsburg PD. In the beginning, Osborn’s wife was in charge of all dispatches for the PD and volunteer fire department. She did this from the Osborns’ house with the use of five telephones.

Osborn was progressive in his approach to policing. Current police chief Chris Noga, who also acts as unofficial Twinsburg PD historian, has commented, “He embraced the concept of the police radio and brought those in. He was one of the first users of the police computer, that system where we can query and find out information on license plates, and driver’s licenses . . . does this person have a warrant out for their arrest.” He also served as the president of the Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police. Possibly his most important contribution was lobbying for the pension system for police officers and firefighters that now greatly benefits those who serve.

 

Osborne sitting in police cruiser.

Reminderville also would form its own police department, but until recently it lacked many of the advantages afforded the Twinsburg PD. When current Reminderville mayor Sam Alonso first took office, he recalls, village police officers were making well under ten dollars an hour. A number of the officers were enrolled in the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program to feed their families. The police station was a small backroom at City Hall, barely sufficient as an office for one more person, much less a police station.

Presently police officers are making over twenty dollars an hour due to the efforts of Mayor Alonso. A new police station was funded by money procured from a major drug bust. The new station is located less than half a mile away from City Hall on Glenwood Boulevard.

During a meeting on September 12, 1983, the Board of Trustees decided Twinsburg Township would start its own police department. Previously there had been talks with Reminderville about forming a joint police force, but no agreement could be reached. The Township police department officially came into being a mere nineteen days later, on October 1. Prior to the formation of the police force, the Township contracted with Reminderville for all its law enforcement needs.

Four officers, including the chief, comprised the entire department when formed in 1983. Additionally, two patrol cars (purchased at a cost of $5,200 each) were procured, as well as equipment including radios, cameras, and an assortment of other necessities.

In spite of these investments, the department did not last long. In January 1988 the trustees voted to disband it due to a slew of indiscretions combined with financial woes. Corruption was corroding the unit to the core, commencing at the top with Chief Samuel Williams. The discredited chief, who had resigned the previous year for “health reasons,” was charged on one count of theft and tampering with records, as was Sergeant. Demetrius MacKannon. The allegations mainly revolved around the chief and sergeant “double-dipping” by working on security jobs while still on the clock for the police department.

Just as instrumental in the downfall of the department were the financial difficulties the Township was dealing with. Paying the sheriff’s department for five full-time deputies to patrol the area saved the Township almost $150,000 in the first year ($237,000 as opposed to the $377,000 it cost to run the police department).

Most recently (in 2014) the Township entered into a three-year agreement with the Summit County sheriff for police protection services. The Township pays for these protective services via property taxes, intergovernmental revenues, and “General Fund transfers.”

 

 

 

Twinsburg Bulletin and Aurora News

Hot off the press and into the hands of a news-hungry public, the Twinsburg Bulletin became the source for all news fit to be printed in 1956. It was at least the third attempt at a local paper. The paper was the brainchild of Wilmer Roseberry, owner and operator of the local department store bearing his name. Roughly nine hundred copies of the paper were delivered when the first edition rolled out, with a focus on locally relevant goings-on. More than a hundred issues were delivered for free, but as the cost began to rise, a fee of five cents was placed on each issue. The timing couldn’t have been more fortuitous for the expanding publication, as Twinsburg was in the midst of a population explosion. Between 1950 and 1960, the resident base more than doubled, no doubt due in part to the introduction of Chrysler to the employment infrastructure.

Usually published every Thursday, and sometimes not at all if Wilmer Roseberry was out of town, early iterations of the paper was more advertisements than articles. Sales at stores, specials at restaurants, and the event times filled the pages. As time passed, the length of the paper grew as did the scope of its content.

The McGhee family took control of the paper in early 1959 and ran it for decades before it was finally sold. Local stories appeared side by side with coverage of state and national issues. Although the appearance and professionalism of the paper has matured over the last sixty years, the heart of its mission has remained the same—local issues for the local community

VFW Post 4929, 1946

Far too many VFW posts are mainly meeting places where veterans can engage in the consumption of alcohol and possibly a game of cards, but VFW Post 4929, founded in 1945, has proven vastly different. “Our post became noted for the fact that we’re serving veterans—which is what the veterans’ VFW post is supposed to do,” according to Commander Joe Jasany. The veterans who attend Post 4929 meetings do so to aid other vets. The goal of every member of the post is to better the lives of their fellow veterans by supporting them and their families (paying for funeral arrangements, a motorized wheelchair, etc.) and veterans hospitals, and performing too many other charitable deeds to mention. ”We played bingo for fifty-one years out at Brecksville VA. We served coffee and doughnuts at Brecksville VA for 41 years every Saturday,” Jasany proudly said.

VFW Post 4929 was started by World War I veterans Leonard Roach and Herbert Richner Sr., who felt there needed to be a place for returning soldiers to visit where they would be able to learn how to readjust to civilian life.

The Ladies Auxiliary of the VFW was formally instituted in 1946 with a membership totaling forty-three. During their existence they played a crucial role in programming for Post 4929. Thousands of hours were spent volunteering at the Brecksville VA Hospital and other facilities benefiting veterans.

Commander Joe was the catalyst in bringing more attention to veterans and in acquiring the old City Hall building as a headquarters in 2000. Prior to its acquisition, the VFW had to meet at a school, a church, or someone’s house for over thirty years. The post hadn’t had a building since the 1960s, when it was located in the Brass Horn, a local watering hole. Losing the Brass Horn as a home base ultimately was a blessing as it was the impetus for altering the focus of the post from alcohol consumption to more altruistic aims.

The membership of Post 4929 increased by twelve after the Cost of Freedom tribute, bringing the total to forty-four members. New members joined from Garfield Heights, Solon, and as far away as Eastlake due to the post’s commitment to its mission: the betterment of veterans’ lives. Most recently, its name has been changed to VFW Post 4929 and Museum, as some of its meeting rooms have been converted to a museum, including a display case dedicated to everything that was left behind from the Cost of Freedom tribute, no matter how trivial the items may seem to the general public.