![]() ![]() “It’s not like they are going to pick up and leave just because of another 3 percent,” said Schwanger, who as a teen-ager worked for Cedar Point and now works at a nearby General Motors auto parts plant.Īn income tax increase is expected to be an issue again this fall. ![]() Some townspeople felt the increase should instead be in the city’s amusement admission tax, which has remained at 3 percent. “I never really had any problems with Cedar Point as far as an amusement park,” said Timothy Schwanger, who lives along Route 6, a main artery to the park.ĭuring the 1980s, the city commissioners discussed raising the residents’ 1 percent income tax rate. How much it should pay for its impact on the community has been. That Cedar Point is a clean, wholesome, well-run amusement park is not a matter of contention in Sandusky. The good will Cedar Point generates by putting everyone’s kids to work, creating spinoff tourist revenue at hotels and restaurants and paying more than $1 million a year in admissions taxes, softens most criticisms of the park’s impact. “They invest a lot of time making sure the community likes them.” “Cedar Point is the novelty that kept the community afloat during the auto recession,” said Jim McConoughey, director of Sandusky’s Downtown Waterfront Development Inc. ![]() Heavy industry is still the anchor of the economy, including Ford, General Motors and Chrysler automotive parts plants.īut Sandusky’s main claim to fame is Cedar Point, and tourist dollars attracted largely by the park are increasingly important to the town. But nearly everyone in town has worked there or has children who have. ![]() Some cars sport bumper stickers that say “Sandusky, Ohio, and proud of it.”Ĭedar Point, with 335 permanent employees, is not among the top three employers in Erie County. It boasts of being “the walleye capital of the world,” a reference to the native fish found in the lake. Sitting halfway between Cleveland and Toledo, Sandusky has a population of 30,000, most descendants of German and Italian immigrants. “Saturday’s usually the worst day of the week.” “When we entertain in the summer, we try to get the people out by 9 o’clock,” Leake said. Leake, Baxter and other neighbors and others said they are inconvenienced by the traffic generated by the park, but have largely learned to live with it, avoiding driving during peak traffic hours in the summer or taking back roads to stay clear of the main arteries. “The nice thing about it is, it has given our young people employment,” Leake said. The company is responsive to neighbors and tries to direct most of the traffic down a causeway that Cedar Point built about 25 years ago to provide a second route from the mainland to the park, Leake said. “The one thing that drives me nuts is they vacuum their parking lot,” Leake said.īut she, too, said that, overall, Cedar Point is a good neighbor. Sometimes she is awakened in the early morning by a street sweeper, she said. Law” piped over the park public address system.īut neighbors on the fourth side say they rarely hear noise from Cedar Point.Ī couple of blocks from the parking lot lives Jan Leake, who said she occasionally hears screams of patrons on rides. Lake Erie acts as a buffer on three sides against the squealing of riders on the Magnum XL-200 roller coaster and strains of the theme from “L.A. The 365-acre Cedar Point has one enormous advantage over Dorney: It’s on a peninsula. His property is less than a quarter-mile from Disaster Transport, one of the park’s 10 roller coasters. Kinzel’s home is closest to the park, with a front yard about 30 feet from the parking lot and a back yard on the shore of Lake Erie. The closer to the park you get, larger and fancier the homes become.Ĭhief Executive Officer Richard L. In Sandusky, some of the most expensive real estate is along Cedar Point Road, a seven-mile stretch that leads to the 122-year-old park and beach resort. ![]()
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