Campbell safety

Campbell safety
CAMPBELL -- The police department is stocking up on equipment to help outfit a six-man critical response team in development by Police Chief Gus Sarigianopoulos.
City council approved the purchase Wednesday night of about $7,000 in new equipment, including gas masks, face shields, and knee and elbow pads.
Sarigianopoulos said the squad is being devised to provide quick response to riots or school safety issues while awaiting possible aid from county crisis teams.
Motel fire
AUSTINTOWN -- Fire apparently caused by an overheated register broke out around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Days Inn motel on North Niles-Canfield Road, causing an estimated $25,000 in damage. The blaze was confined to one room, but everyone in the motel was evacuated because of the heavy smoke, reports say.
Suspects sought
BOARDMAN -- Police are looking for two men who stole $1,700 worth of merchandise from Southern Park Mall. Reports say a man entered Dillard's Department Store about 11:45 a.m. Wednesday and took 43 Tommy Hilfiger shirts and ran out of the store. Reports say a car driven by another man left traveling west through the mall parking lot.
Youth charged
CAMPBELL -- A 14-year-old Sixth Street boy is charged with inducing panic after police received complaints that he was running down the street with a gun. Police said the boy told them the gun was a toy and he threw it away. He then stated that it was a BB gun and he gave it to a friend.
Police said they found the BB gun, which resembled a semiautomatic pistol, on the boy's friend. The youth was placed on house arrest.
Man loitering
YOUNGSTOWN -- Police checked out the report of a man in a light blue Buick loitering near children waiting for a school bus in the Steel Street-Butler Avenue area Wednesday morning. The man also followed the bus.
Officers spoke to a witness, who provided a description of the man -- heavyset, mustache and beard in a white T-shirt -- and his license number.
A woman who called West Elementary School relayed similar information about the man. Police checked the man's West Side address but found no one home.
Canfield sewer work
CANFIELD -- City council intends to borrow $500,000 to plug leaks in a 5,000-foot stretch of sewer line along Sawmill Creek. Work is already under way on the 24-inch pipe, which carries effluent from most of the city northwest to the county-operated Meander Treatment Plant.
Council approved several measures Wednesday to get state Issue II funding for work on the next section of pipe, from Herbert to Garwood roads. A $500,000 zero-interest 20-year loan has already been approved by the local committee, which ranks Issue II projects, but formal approval from the state is still necessary, said Charles Tieche, the city manager.
The project, which will likely involve sending a robot sprayer through the 40-year-old pipe, could begin this year.
EEOC reps in town
YOUNGSTOWN -- Representatives from the Cleveland district office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will be on hand at the Youngstown Area Urban League's office, 1350 Fifth Avenue, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Thursday.
They will be available to counsel visitors on laws enforced by the EEOC and prepare and investigate charges of employment discrimination. Federal laws prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, age and disability.
Take the stairs
YOUNGSTOWN -- Workers and visitors to the city-owned Wick building are finding it's a long way to the top.
The 13-story building's one remaining working elevator, which is operated by an attendant, is undergoing emergency repairs, forcing everybody to use the stairs. The elevator should be running again within a day or so. The other elevator has a burned-out motor and is unusable.
The city appropriated money in 1999 to install a modern, automatic elevator but problems bidding the work mean no contract has been awarded yet.