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Southpointe public hearing Dec. 2
by Larry Austin
The Grand Island Town Board has proclaimed Nov. 30, two days after Thanksgiving, as "Small Business Saturday" on Grand Island and urged all residents "to support local businesses that we value in our community by patronizing them on 'Small Business Saturday' and repeatedly throughout the year."
The board issued the proclamation at its regular meeting on Monday at Town Hall.
"Small Business Saturday" was founded in 2010 by American Express "as a national effort to drive consumers to shop at local independently owned businesses, and to help small businesses get more exposure during one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year," the proclamation stated.
In making the proclamation, the board noted that "a successful small business community is an essential part of our great quality of life on Grand Island as our local businesses create jobs, boost our local economy by generating tax revenues, and contribute to the preservation of the neighborhoods that compose the landscape of our Grand Island local economy and enrich its unique culture." For every $100 spent in independently owned businesses, $68 is returned to the community through taxes, payroll and other expenditures, the proclamation said.
The proclamation noted that small businesses employ half of the private sector employees in the U.S.
Accepting the proclamation were representatives of the Grand Island Chamber of Commerce, including Fahim Mojawalla, media director for the chamber and also owner of Island Ship Center, and the chamber's Jim Sharpe and Skip Mazenauer, the latter publisher of the Island Dispatch.
"It's a really important event, and the way that it's taken off, it's awesome," Mojawalla said of "Small Business Saturday." "Really great things are happening."
Also at the meeting, the board set a public hearing for 8 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 2, regarding the proposed establishment of the Southpointe extension to the consolidated sewer district.
Southpointe is a 284-acre parcel on the south end of the Island near Baseline and Staley roads zoned as a planned development district and approved in 1998. The revised 2013 Southpointe master plan calls for 939 residential units and an expected resident population of 1,394, according to a memo by Doug Scheid, agent for Associated Grand Island LLC on May 30.
The project would include "two or more pump stations, installation of gravity sewer lines and a force main pipeline to convey effluent to existing lift station No. 17," according to the order calling for the hearing.