Doug Lindner

SOLON– Solon High School’s 5th Street Jazz vocal ensemble participated in the Iowa Vocal Jazz Championships nine times and won the Class 3A title five times, but the group was not invited to participate in 2016.
It made this year’s competition special for Solon seniors.
“My sophomore year, I was in Blame It On Our Youth, and we got third at championships, so it was very hard last year, being in 5th Street and not qualifying,” Solon senior Elizabeth Hand said.

SOLON– Everyone’s favorite route between Solon and Cedar Rapids will be the subject of extensive construction this year.
Two more phases of an Ely Road (W6E) overhaul are planned for this season, including the conversion of its intersection with Highway 382 into a three-way roundabout.
Following the completion of the roundabout, the Johnson County Secondary Roads Department plans to proceed with the paving of three-quarters of a mile of Ely Road from the intersection north to 140th Street NE, adjacent to the Lakeview OHV park.

SOLON– A one-time, $150,000 investment into 121 on Main will be made by the city.
At a March 15 meeting, city council members voted 4-0 in support of a lump sum payment to HPR Investments LLC for a Main Street commercial/residential development planned west of Big Grove Brewery.
The city expects to use an internal loan to cover the initial expense, to be paid back through Tax Increment Finance (TIF) revenues.
One member of the public, however, said the city had not gone far enough in requiring off-street parking for the project.

SOLON– Brad Friedhof hoped he’d have better news to deliver.
Friedhof, conservation program manager for the Johnson County Conservation Board, appeared before the Solon City Council March 1 to provide an update on the extension of the Hoover Trail from Ely to Solon.
“I wished I’d be here with a construction update,” Friedhof told council members, “but I’m not.”
The project, a 5.8-mile section of the Hoover Trail between Solon and Ely, was waylaid in 2016 by the permitting process, Friedhof said.

SOLON– Everyone was apparently surprised.
Developer Cory Hodapp was surprised to find out he was expected to pay for an emergency siren and a paved trail around a detention pond in the third addition of the Old Mill Creek subdivision.
City Administrator Cami Rasmussen went him one better.
“If it’s a surprise to Cory, then I’m surprised that it’s a surprise,” Rasmussen said during a March 1 Solon City Council meeting.
It was all part of a lengthy discussion surrounding the consideration of a developer’s agreement for a new phase of the residential subdivision on the city’s western edge.