Trustees delay action on home-rule vote

By Mary Smith

A former trustee is working for the township again.

MINERAL RIDGE — Weathersfield Township trustees have delayed action on placing the option of limited home rule on the Nov. 4 ballot, opting instead to seek additional information before bringing the question to a vote.

Limited home rule in Ohio enables a township to enact legislation in a broad range of areas that it cannot do as a statutory township.

Township trustee chairman Fred Bobovnyk said that under limited home rule trustees can enact laws that place civil limitations and can include fines.

Bobovnyk said that laws concerning what is put on properties can also been enacted, instead of the current method of relying on zoning law.

In other business at their meeting Tuesday, trustees authorized the clerk to request information from the Trumbull County prosecutor’s office on combining two separate police levies to be placed on the November ballot for renewal.

The township police department was formed in 1984. Before that, the township contracted with the Trumbull County sheriff’s department for police protection.

There are eight patrolmen, six part-time patrolmen, a captain and a chief. The department operates with 13 cruisers.

Trustees also hired Atty. James J. Pirko, a former township trustee, effective Tuesday for grant writing and research and development at a consultant rate of $1,000 a month for one year.

Bobovnyk said that the township is placing a security camera in the parking lot where recycling bins are located. He said people are dropping off cardboard without tearing it up and just dropping it if there is no more room in the bin. He said other trash is also being dropped off. He said that when the hauler comes to pick up the recycling bins, they do not carry away the excess trash.

“It has almost become a garbage dump. We hope people will treat it better.”

Trustees also approved a $250 donation the Trumbull County Firefighters’ Association Fire Safety Exhibition to take place at the Eastwood Mall Expo Center on Oct. 10, 11 and 12.