CANFIELD Park officials give pay increase to workers

CANFIELD -- Mill Creek MetroParks commissioners gave 31/4-percent pay increases to 21 maintenance employees and 3-percent increases to 50 nonunion staff members, effective in January.
The raises for maintenance workers, who belong to American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 288, stem from a wage reopener in the final year of a three-year contract. Their pay will range from $12.99 to $17.27 per hour.
Commissioners also authorized park staff Monday to keep the lighted sledding hill at Wick Recreation Area, where the park is making artificial snow, open until 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays if use justifies it. It closes at 9:30 p.m. during the week.
Plea for defibrillators
The board heard Heather Mountz, health initiatives manager for the American Heart Association, urge purchase of automated external defibrillators for park police. They cost between $1,800 and $3,500 each.
"These defibrillators can shock someone's heart back into a normal rhythm after they've had a sudden cardiac arrest and the police officers have that advantage of getting to the scene of an emergency first," she explained.
Carol Potter, the parks' director of marketing and development, announced that Ohio bicentennial markers will be placed next year at the Hopewell Blast Furnace ruins in Yellow Creek Park and at Pioneer Pavilion in Mill Creek Park -- structures which were built in 1802 and 1821, respectively.