City honors TMS Cross Country runner Woolverton

By Pat Pratt

ppratt@timestribunenews.com

Troy City Council on Monday honored Triad Middle School Cross Country Captain Gavin Woolverton for numerous accomplishments with the team, including All American Honors. 

Woolverton, who attended the meeting with family members, earned All American Honors by placing ninth among runners from across the nation at the Cross Country Coaches National Youth Championship in November at Shelbyville, Ind. 

At the October state championships in Du Quoin, Woolverton placed third out of 129 runners, marking the third year he received All-State honors. He currently holds the title of the team’s most valuable runner and the record for the 3,000-meter home course. 

“It feels great,” Woolverton said following recognition at the meeting. “It feels great to be recognized. I wasn’t expecting it from the mayor until a couple weeks ago, but it’s so exciting.” 

In addition to the proclamation in his honor at the Monday meeting, Woolverton will be honored with a sign on the edge of town. Coach Bob Hull, who was also at the meeting, described Woolverton as an amazing student-athlete with enormous potential. 

“He’s an amazing young man and probably one of the best runners to come through the area  in a long time,” Hull said. “There is no quit in him. And based on that, we went out and pursued a postseason competition for him and he qualified for national championships in November.”

Other council actions at the meeting were focused on development and property agreements. 

While still in the planning phases at this time, most visible of those to the general public in the days ahead was an agreement with RTM Engineering for lighting in the downtown area. The firm will provide engineering services for burying utilities and the installation of ornamental lighting along Market Street from Main to Hickory streets. Cost of the services is $21,000, according to meeting documents.

Three ordinances were passed during the meeting related to a utility easement on property owned by Jeanne L. Bohnenstiehl Living Trust. According to a memorandum of understanding approved at the meeting between the city and the trust, a 350-foot strip of land will be annexed for a utility easement. In exchange, the city approved a ten-year tax abatement for the easement. 

The MOU also will provide water and sewer hook-ins for the larger property, as well as an abatement for taxes on those two parcels if within the next ten years the trust agrees to be annexed by the city. The plat design will now be valid for 10 years. 

Council approved an agreement with Osborn Development where in exchange for a waiver of a one-year expiration of a preliminary plat design, a strip of land along Formosa Road will be donated for construction of a bicycle trail. The development when completed will contain both single-family and multi-family villas. 

A resolution to apply for a surface transportation grant through East West Gateway Council of Governments was approved during the meeting. The funds, if awarded, will help pay for improvements on Bouse Road from Old Troy Road to just east of Whitworth Drive. 

Planned improvements to Bouse Road include a 24-foot wide roadway with six-foot asphalt shoulders and an eight-foot path to connect to the Madison County Transit Goshen Trail. Costs are estimated at $999,000 with the city contributing $325,400 of the total. 

Two resolutions for tax abatements were passed at the meeting – one for Pete’s Market and another for the new Creative Blow Mold Tooling. However, both were already in place and the resolutions approved Monday only reworded the abatements to mesh with language requested by Madison County assessors. 

The next meeting of the Troy City Council is set for 6:30 p.m. Feb. 21, a Tuesday, as the normal meeting day of Monday is Presidents’ Day.