CAMPELL Mayor urges renewal of county tax

CAMPBELL -- Maintaining the half-percent Mahoning County sales tax, which is before the voters for renewal Nov. 5, is essential, Mayor Jack Dill told the Mahoning County commissioners Friday evening.
"It's so important that this tax must pass. We have enjoyed several benefits through this," he said, citing the Sanderson Avenue extension into the newly opened kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school grounds and $700,000 in county matching money for brownfield redevelopment. The mayor added that city council has passed a resolution in support of the tax.
Some 100 people turned out at Campbell City Hall on Friday evening and heard speakers for and against the tax, including some who spoke at a hearing on the matter earlier this week in Poland.
"I'm sorry that you see a need to have these hearings. May I remind you that the voters spoke through the ballot box at the last election?" in May, when the tax was defeated, said Josephine Malys of Boardman.
She noted that hundreds of LTV retirees lost their health-care benefits a month before that election. "These retired people just got a kick in the pocketbook, and you said "Give us five more years of sales tax,'" she protested. "Gentlemen and Mrs. Sherlock, give us a break," she said.
Additional hearings on the tax will be at 10 a.m. Monday at the county courthouse and at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Sebring City Hall.