AUSTINTOWN Trustees postpone vote on home rule

Trustees also rejected a zone change request from residential to professional office.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- The trustees' vote on home rule for the township will be postponed until next year.
Outgoing Trustee Jeff Groat, the board chairman, who had previously said he intended to make a motion in favor of home rule Thursday, announced at the meeting that he is leaving the decision to trustees next year at the request of trustee-elect Bo Pritchard.
Trustees Groat, David Ditzler, and Richard Edwards, all endorse home rule as does Pritchard.
Thursday's meeting was the last of the year and the last for Groat, who is ending four years as a trustee. He did not seek re-election and plans to run for the Democratic nomination for Mahoning County commissioner in the May primary.
Under state law, trustees must be unanimous to enact home rule -- a form of limited self-government that would give them the authority to pass health, safety and sanitation ordinances. The township's voters defeated home rule three times during the 1990s.
Other matters: In other action, trustees rejected a request to rezone three lots at the northwest corner of Northwood Avenue and South Meridian Road from single or multi-family residential to a professional office zoning classification. The recommendation to reject the request came from the Mahoning County Planning Commission and the township zoning commission.
Real estate agent Cynthia Cursaro-Wetson, who planned to buy the land and establish her office in a house on the premises, said her intended use would not add significantly to traffic congestion, noise or litter to the area.
But Paula Bianco, an adjacent Kirk Road resident, said she wanted the area to stay residential and did not want business activity next to her house.
Zoning Inspector Michael Kurilla said there have been 99 single-family housing starts in the township so far this year. The township has averaged 100 per year over the last decade.
He said he's confident one more house will be started by year's end, and that the township likely will, for the eighth consecutive year, lead the Mahoning Valley in single-family housing starts.
Trustees accepted the donation of $1,000 from Thomas Fok, a township resident and chairman of the architectural and engineering firm bearing his name, for U.S. flags that will fly from line utility poles on township roads.