AUSTINTOWN Program drafts plan for growth

The draft calls for the township to establish home rule.
By IAN HILL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- Township residents and officials should encourage economic growth, develop a community identity, and build sidewalks and bike paths to help create a bright future for their community.
That's according to a 162-page draft of a community plan created for the Austintown Growth Foundation by students and professors in Ball State University's Community-Based Projects Program.
The growth foundation calls the effort to create the plan "20/20-Austintown."
Dr. Fred Owens, growth foundation president, said the foundation recently reviewed the draft and made suggestions to the Ball State group on how it should be revised.
He said the foundation asked the Ball State group to add more detail to the draft on how the township's goals for the future can be reached.
To present plan
Owens said he hopes to be ready to present the plan to the public in the coming months.
"Our reaction was very positive to the draft," he said. "It would make for a spectacular future."
The draft was created using comments made by local residents at a series of public meetings in the spring. It includes 35 pages of recommendations residents and officials can take to encourage economic growth, develop a community identity, and improve the township.
Those recommendations include developing a business incubator, creating a township center to serve as a location for a variety of commercial and civic activities, and establishing ordinances that can be used to clean up Mahoning Avenue.
The draft also recommends creating a network of bike and pedestrian paths to link residents to schools, parks, and commercial areas.
Home rule
Some sections of the draft could be controversial, including a recommendation to establish home rule, a limited form of self-government which township voters have rejected four times.
The draft states that the failure of home rule at the ballot "is associated with a mistrust, or a misunderstanding of what it means to have home rule."
It adds, however, that "while there remains issues of concern, there is consistent belief that the people of Austintown should be able to guide the future of their own community and that home rule or something like it will be necessary to enact many of the suggestions and proposed projects within this community plan."
Owens said the plan revisions could be complete by mid-October. He noted, however, that the foundation may wait until after the November election to present the plan to the public.
hill@vindy.com