AUSTINTOWN Officials push home rule

A vote for home rule keeps the alligators away, a trustee says.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VNDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- If the voters approve home rule Tuesday, township officials will act to assure residents that no caimans reside at 5647 Stanford Ave., Trustee Bo Pritchard vowed Thursday afternoon.
If home rule is retained, the township will ask Carl Fisher, who lives there, to verify that he harbors no caimans, Pritchard said. If he doesn't, officials will make sure none is there.
A six-foot caiman kept by Fisher escaped into the back yard from a second floor window of the bilevel house in August 2001 and was captured less than an hour later by Fisher and two police officers.
It was one of two caimans Fisher kept at the time. Caimans are Central and South American reptiles and members of the crocodile family.
Speaking to voters
Outside Fisher's house Thursday, Pritchard, Trustee Richard E. Edwards and township clerk Michael J. Kurish urged voters to approve continuation of home rule so the township retains authority to regulate exotic pets and other safety, health and quality of life concerns.
"If you want to leave the alligators loose, you vote against home rule. If you want to make sure that your neighborhood does not have alligators invited into it, you have to support home rule to allow us to keep them out," Pritchard said.
"Home rule doesn't cost any taxpayer dollars. It doesn't increase taxes. It doesn't change the way that we raise taxes."
After home rule was defeated three times by the voters during the 1990s, most recently by fewer than 10 votes in 1997, trustees unanimously imposed it in March and enacted an ordinance tightly restricting possession of exotic pets as their first home rule measure in August.
Edwards said home rule gives the township financial advantages, including a larger share of parking fines, potential savings on workers compensation costs and the potential for increased gasoline tax revenue.
Gary Brant of Pinecrest Avenue, who circulated petitions to put home rule on the ballot, was there with leaflets urging voters to reject home rule.
"We just feel that we've got enough government. We don't need more. I don't think I'm going to ask for more government to control one caiman," he said.
"They obviously have nothing better to do. I'll talk to you later. Goodbye," Fisher said by phone Thursday night and hung up.