Voters in Austintown again reject home rule

Canfield Township residents approved a zoning change that paves the way for the construction of a hotel on U.S. Route 224.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- Spencer the caiman can sleep peacefully tonight: Home rule is no longer in effect in Austintown.
Home rule is a limited form of self-government that allowed the township trustees to make it illegal to keep exotic animals like caimans as pets. Trustees approved home rule in March.
Township residents later collected enough signatures on petitions to place home rule on Tuesday's ballot. It failed by an unofficial total of 988 votes.
Spencer had escaped from the Stanford Avenue home of its owner in August 2001 by crawling out a second-story window. Caimans are South American reptiles that are members of the crocodile family.
Trustees said that without home rule, they didn't have the power to prohibit township residents from keeping caimans and other exotic animals as pets. Home rule allows trustees to pass health, safety and sanitation resolutions.
In August, trustees passed a resolution making it illegal to keep exotic animals as pets in the township.
Because of Tuesday's vote, trustees won't be able to enforce that resolution. They also won't be able to follow through with plans to create a property maintenance code through home rule.
Trustee Bo Pritchard said trustees, "are going to honor how the residents have voted and try to address the problems in other ways."
Pritchard added that he thought home rule failed "because people are very reluctant to change their form of government." Home rule also was defeated by voters in 1992, 1995 and 1997.
Pinecrest Avenue resident Gary Brant, who led the drive to put home rule on Tuesday's ballot, said he thinks home rule would have passed if trustees had placed it on the ballot instead of approving it themselves. Brant added that he voted against home rule because, "I think we have enough government."
Canfield Township
Also on Tuesday, voters in Canfield Township approved a request to change the zoning for the Naffah family property on U.S. Route 224 from residential to business. The rear limit of the business zoning for that property, which is located between Summit Drive and South Raccoon Road, also will be extended from 500 to 1,000 feet as a result of the vote.
The request was approved by an unofficial total of 63 votes.
The family plans to work with developers to construct an inn/conference center, a retail shopping center, a bank, a restaurant and two medical buildings on the property.
Both the Mahoning County Planning Commission and the Canfield township zoning board had endorsed changing the zoning. Township trustees voted 2-1 to reject the proposal.
A unanimous vote was needed to overturn the recommendations of the zoning commission and planning board. Township residents later collected enough signatures on petitions to place the zoning change on the ballot.
Michal Naffah said he didn't have a timeline for the construction of the project.
"We just wanted to get through this," he said. "We couldn't move forward unless we knew the township wanted to do this."
Naffah added that, "I will do everything in my power to develop a project that everyone in Canfield will be proud of."
hill@vindy.com