Austintown trustees need a better track record to get support for home rule

Austintown trustees need a better track record to get support for home rule
EDITOR:
I am taken aback and actually quite angry over our trustees' latest move to implement home rule in Austintown. A resident of Youngstown since the early '90s, I moved to Austintown in 1997 for fresh air and better opportunities for my children. Since then, I have watched Austintown become one of the fastest growing communities west of Youngstown.
Quite frankly, I don't believe that the trustees have done an admirable job of administering our township.
Poor lot drainage was an albatross for some time. Were it not for federal and state subsidies, the township would still be looking for a way to alleviate flooding.
It took a bunch of hooting and hollering before the western extension of New Road was repaved. Other roads need to be repaved as well. And who, in his infinite wisdom, would allow dozens of gargantuan duplexes to be built practically on top of each other?
The statements of Ditzler and Pritchard only exacerbate my anti-government feelings. In the corrupt political quagmire here in Mahoning County, personified by the likes of Jimmy Traficant, who could ever trust government?
Bo Pritchard's statement about voting him off if home rule becomes a monster only shows that his focus is short-term. Ditzler just wants the gators out and, "Hey, neighbor, better spruce that house up, or it'll be a ticket for you. & quot; But no such treatment for his political pals.
No, I can't be a fan of home rule when I don't believe the trustees have been looking out for the best interests of the township and its residents. When the trustees can manage the township better and show that their actions in enforcing proposed ordinances would not be arbitrary or capricious, I might then side with home rule. Not until then.
HARRY TURNER
Austintown
N.Y. transplant surprised by quality medicine here
EDITOR:
Sept 11, 2001 was an eye-opener for our nation and all the people of the world.
I had been a doctor in New York City for more than 14 years and had reflected, from time to time, on relocating from New York City to practice medicine in a less chaotic, disorganized and populated milieu.Most of the pre-retirees -- baby boomers -- I know began to migrate to the south, looking for solace in Florida, Georgia or South Carolina.
I was always the person who marched to a different drummer. Accordingly, I migrated to Youngstown after the events of Sept. 11.
I originally thought the brand of medicine I would find here would be low-key, unsophisticated and ordinary. Having been a pediatric emergency medicine doctor, I thought my new-found home would be full of mundane life-styles with mediocre pediatric medicine. To my surprise, I found just the opposite.
At present, I am working as a pediatric emergency doctor at Tod Children's Hospital in Youngstown. To my amazement, the pediatric medicine here is first rate. Yes, Youngstowners, you have a dedicated, professional and well trained staff of pediatric specialists right here in your own backyard. I am certainly fortunate and proud to be working with such a professional class of doctors and nurses.
I left the Big Apple and all its glory, but I found serendipitously a diamond in the rough. To say the least, I am proud to be part of the pediatric emergency staff at Tod Children's Hospital. You have a wonderful children's hospital filled with compassion, understanding, dedication and first-rate medicine. You should be as proud as I.
CHARLES C. NEWTON, M.D.
Boardman