3 seek post as Poland’s mayor

U.S. 224 boulevards and flooding are among the issues village mayoral candidates discussed.

By DENISE DICK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

POLAND — A retired Mahoning County Planning Commission director, an insurance company president and an employee of a trust company all want to be the village’s next mayor.

Ruth Wilkes, mayor for 18 years, resigned from the seat earlier this year and didn’t seek re-election.

That left the race without an incumbent, and three political newcomers entered the contest.

The village functions as a weak-mayor form of government. The mayor runs council meetings but votes only when there is a tie among council members.

Ralph Mentzer, 67, retired in 1992 after 10 years as director of Mahoning County Economic and Community Development, where he applied for all of the grants for the county. Before that, he worked for 23 years at the Mahoning County Planning Commission, the last several years as executive director.

Tim Sicafuse, 40, started and is president of Valley Insurance Group. John Yerian, 37, works in business development at Butler Wick Trust Company, Youngstown.

Mentzer decided to seek the office after speaking to many residents and business people last winter regarding a proposal for installing center islands along U.S. Route 224.

“People want a mayor to get behind them,” he said. “They want someone as mayor to represent them and that they can know one-on-one.”

The boulevard proposal, made by Town One Streetscapes, a community beautification group, was withdrawn after several people voiced opposition at a village council meeting.

But Mentzer doesn’t believe it’s a dead issue. He’s against the proposal and was one of its most vocal critics earlier this year.

A Streetscapes representative within the past few weeks distributed a magazine article to council members about a Washington state community that has the medians or islands along a main corridor, he said.

Both Sicafuse and Yerian said they, too, opposed the boulevard idea at the time it was broached because residents didn’t support it.

Sicafuse believes the fact that he started his own business in 1992 sets him apart from the other candidates.

“It taught me to be very responsible fiscally, taught me people skills and crisis management,” he said.

Sicafuse believes flooding problems are the biggest issue in the village.

The village’s infrastructure is old, he explained and must be updated to handle it.

“The problem is the money,” Sicafuse said.

The village needs to apply for grant money to complete the projects. He suggests working with surrounding communities in seeking the funds to offer a more regional approach and increase the likelihood of projects’ being funded.

Mentzer agrees that grant funding must be pursued to address infrastructure problems but believes his experience with grant applications distinguishes him from his opponents.

Yerian also believes that pursuing grants is the way to address flooding. He also supports the Storm Water Advisory Team, or SWAT, a group formed after the flooding of 2003 and 2004.

He believes that his experience on various community groups including Boardman Rotary and the library board gives him an advantage over his opponents,

“My talent is building consensus,” Yerian said.

One of his ideas is formation of a committee, under village council’s auspices, to address community problems. Membership would depend upon the issue. To address heavy truck traffic, for example, membership would include people who live along the affected routes and someone from the trucking industry, he said.