Craig Alderman is challenging Windham Township Trustee Brian Keith Miller in the November election.
A Windham Township trustee for the past 22 years, Miller heads Miller Sand and Gravel and Miller Service and Supply. He serves on the Ravenna Arsenal Board that monitors the cleanup of the facility, which has been repurposed as a military training center and renamed the Camp James A. Garfield Military Training Center.
Miller is a lifelong Windham Township resident and said he volunteers where needed in his community.
“If you got a problem, I try to help you,” Miller said.
Should he prevail in the November election, Miller said he would continue to work on what he calls “slow, systemic improvements in our community.”
He said he was glad that the township was able to use its own funds to restore the Gotham Road bridge in less than three weeks and did so at a cost far less than what it would have taken to rebuild the structure.
Originally built in 1865, the bridge — technically a culvert because it is less than 10 feet long — reopened Oct. 10 after the three-week closure. The township had help from the county engineer’s office and a local contractor, Miller said.
With two-thirds of Windham Township taken up by the JAG Training Center, which provides no tax revenue, every inch of land in the township must be used to sustain tax dollars for Windham schools and township services, Miller said.
“We have a lot of nice new families building beautiful homes in Windham Township. I would love to see that expanded. It does my heart good to see young people that grew up here want to make their homes in Windham Township,” he said.
Miller is also pleased that the township is finally taking ownership of a 15-acre industrial property on Route 303. Long a brownfield, a 20-year cleanup that involved the EPA and other state and federal agencies is complete. The acquisition of the state-owned land would give the township two acres of ground it can use while the remainder is reserved as a permanent conservation easement, he said.
The property now contains a cell phone tower and six industrial buildings. Miller said the township’s plans for the property are as yet undetermined, but one idea is to use it as a recycling dropoff center.
Miller said he was also glad that he and his colleagues were able to keep the township fiscally sound through the pandemic and assisted the township’s residents and 14 churches negotiate Covid-19.
“That was challenging, being able to perform public meetings and trying to keep things as normal as possible,” he said.
Alderman traces his family’s history in Windham Township back to the 1930s, when his ancestors began farming land he still calls home. A township resident for 30 years, he has served as a scout leader and assisted with the food pantry based at Friendship Alliance Church. He has also served as the township’s zoning inspector.
Formerly a maintenance and transportation supervisor for Windham schools, as operations manager, he now oversees park maintenance and construction projects for the Portage Park District.
“As I watched some of the changes going on around us in Windham Township and in the surrounding townships over the past years, I thought there was a need for a modern vision and ideas for the direction of the township, for the future of the township,” Alderman said.
Windham needs both residential growth and areas that can provide business opportunities, he said. The township does not have a master plan that would proactively identify and manage growth, but trustees approved a zoning map in 1999.
The map divides the township into two-acre residential lots and the single 15-acre industrial district the township is working to purchase from the state.
A single unused industrial district is not nearly enough, Alderman said. The township’s leaders need to examine the township’s zoning map to identify what he calls opportunity zones for business, commercial enterprises and different housing densities, as well as to address roadblocks to them.
“I’m a planner by nature, so I look at the creation of a comprehensive plan, some type of master plan for the direction the township could go to maintain a successful township. I don’t want to simply react to issues and events as they arise. I’d like to be proactive. I’d like to have a plan in place,” he said.
Even with a plan, Alderman said the trustees must be flexible, adapting to new information and events as they arise.
“The trustees are caretakers, stewards of the township, and we have to hear what the people want. If the people want commercial or industrial growth, then you work towards that. If they want increased residential growth, you work towards that,” he said.
If residents prioritize maintaining Windham Township’s rural character, trustees must work toward that, as well, he said.
“But I do believe tradition has to meet the future at some point. The future’s coming whether we’re ready for it or not. I prefer to be ready,” he said.
Trustees must also let township residents know what they’re doing instead of counting on them to attend monthly meetings, Alderman said, pledging that, as trustee, he would prioritize communication.
He said Windham Township’s leaders must also be a source of help and assistance to community members, guiding senior citizens and especially newcomers to resources for everything from medical needs to child care to food to housing.
“We can’t do it all for them, but we can be a source of information. I think that’s very important,” Alderman said.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.