Shields Road expansion
Shields Road expansion
CANFIELD -- Mill Creek MetroParks has given the Mahoning County Engineer's office an additional 80 feet of right of way along Shields Road in Mill Creek Park.
The extra footage will be used to expand the road between Sheban Drive and West Boulevard next summer. The park commissioners agreed to hand over the right of way during a special meeting Friday afternoon.
The road is two lanes wide in the park with a right-hand turning lane at Sheban Drive. The engineer's project calls for right- and left-hand turning lanes to be added to Shields Road at Sheban Drive. In addition, the Shields Road bridge over Mill Creek will be replaced and two bike lanes will be constructed along the road. There was no cost figure for the work.
Construction will begin next summer and is expected to be complete before fall.
New Salem officer
SALEM -- Mayor Larry DeJane swore in a new police officer Friday, filling a gap left in the force by a retirement in March.
Karl Toy, 24, is the city's newest man in blue. Toy comes to the department from the Perry Township police force, for whom he worked part time.
Toy's hiring restores the Salem department to its full roster of 24 officers, said Chief Michael Weitz. Toy will be paid $22,900 annually.
The vacancy he is filling was created in March, when Scott Cranmer retired as a lieutenant. His job slot has been filled by Robert Floor, who previously was a sergeant.
Cranmer is now the city's safety director, a job to which he was appointed by DeJane earlier this week.
Buckle Up signs in Niles
NILES -- Officials are posting signs throughout the city, reminding motorists to use their safety belts and child safety seats.
The city received the signs for the Buckle Up Campaign from the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
They read: "Your life is in your hands. Buckle up, Ohio."
More drug charges
SHARON, Pa. -- Damon Hulley, 23, of First Avenue, was brought from Mercer County Jail to the office of District Justice James McMahon for a preliminary hearing on drug charges, but the hearing wasn't held. Instead, police were waiting for him with another warrant for drug sales.
He was charged Thursday with three counts of delivery of crack cocaine to an undercover agent in the 300 block of Sterling Avenue on March 7 and the 200 block of First Avenue on June 4 and 5.
McMahon ordered him held on $25,000 bond on those charges and rescheduled his preliminary hearing on the earlier case to coincide with a preliminary hearing on the new charges at 2 p.m. Thursday.
Hulley was returned to jail where he had been held on $50,000 bond after being arrested in Sharon June 5 on possession, possession with intent to deliver and tampering with evidence in two crack cocaine sales to an undercover agent.
Mission fund-raiser
AUSTINTOWN -- The manager of Regal Cinema on Mahoning Avenue is to be on the roof of the theater without food until 6 p.m. today as part of an effort to raise money for the Rescue Mission of Mahoning Valley on Martin Luther King Drive in Youngstown. Christina Martinelli, theater manager, went up on the roof at 6 p.m. Friday.
Guilty of sex crimes
WARREN -- A jury has found Tod Hurd, 29, of West Farmington, guilty of two counts of attempted rape and one count of gross sexual imposition for attacks on a female relative.
The jury was unable to come to a unanimous verdict on two counts of rape.
The trial finished up Friday in the courtroom of Judge Andrew Logan of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court.
Hurd faces two to eight years in prison and up to a $15,000 fine for each count of attempted rape, a second-degree felony, and one to five years and up to a $10,000 fine for gross sexual imposition, a third-degree felony.
The rape charges had carried a penalty of life in prison, with no eligibility for parole for 10 years.
Attacks on the girl, who was under 13 at the time, took place in 1998 and 1999.
Hurd will be sentenced Tuesday.
Hydrants to be flushed
WARREN -- The Trumbull County Sanitary Engineer's Department will be flushing water hydrants in Champion and Bazetta townships for two to three weeks, starting Monday.
Customers may experience discolored water and low pressure as hydrants are flushed.