LEETONIA — Overall, village mayor Kevin Siembida is happy with the progress Leetonia made in 2024.

“We really had a successful year,” he recently explained. “With a $400,000 carryover balance, we have a healthy start for 2025.”

Retention had been a major issue for village police, like most departments, so it was a top focus for Siembida.

By increasing the part-time hourly rate from $12 to $20 per hour for part-timers and underwriting the cost of health care for full-time employees, Leetonia has become a viable option for patrolmen seeking employment.

“That is extremely attractive for a small town,” the mayor noted, as most departments require employee payment toward health care benefits.

With most of the preliminary planning completed for the first phase of Leetonia’s $11 million downtown project last year, the village is set to bid out the construction phase in the next 90 days. Siembida explained, officials are holding off waiting to hear back regarding the utilities right now.

In addition to moving the utilities underground, building facades will be restored and the streetscape redesigned to improve traffic and accessibility, resulting in upgraded quality of life and boosting tourism.

Just this month, the village got word that its project for proposed public restrooms at the splash pad has gotten two-thirds of its necessary funding approved, with additional possible grants still in the works.

Leetonia introduced its splash pad this summer and so far it has been well received by visitors. Siembida said he hopes to make an annual family friendly splash event to open the summer season.

The public restrooms, which look to be added this summer, will be a major part of solidifying the attraction’s popularity. “This is another major project that will help to drive the local economy in town,” the mayor noted.

A proposed Leetonia community center still is at least four years out. “We are still in the design phase and have more money to raise,” he added. “We are doing a lot of preliminary research to get us where we need to be for the project.”

In 2024, Siembida said that they focused on improving their equipment fleet, enabling them to do more in-house and saving more.

However, this coming year, officials still plan on doing their large village-wide paving project, which he estimated will cost between $800,000 and $1 million.

Every four years, the village takes the funds they have collected from the state gas tax and use them to pay back the loan for the project in an effort not to tap general fund monies.

Siembida also said that Leetonia will begin utilizing the $1.65 million Ohio Department of Development Welcome Home grant received in 2024.

As part of the program, Landis Construction will develop homes in the Orchard Hill Estates area near the K-12 building for income-eligible homebuyers by November 2026.

sujhelyi@mojonews.com