Struthers mayor faces challenge from independent

By jeanne starmack

starmack@vindy.com

struthers

An independent candidate is challenging the Democratic incumbent in the race for mayor.

Phil DeMarco Jr., 49, who’s running for office for the first time, is up against Terry Stocker, 63, who is running for his second term as mayor.

Stocker also has been a 4th-ward councilman, a councilman-at-large, and was protem/president of council.

Though DeMarco has not held office before, he has successfully run businesses that included a restaurant and a neighborhood grocery store, he said. He said he would run the city like a business.

“I’m not a politician,” he said. “As a business person, I look at being mayor as running a business.”

DeMarco also said crime is a concern, and that the city appears to be headed for some major financial troubles. He said that the police department was down two officers and the fire department was down one firefighter, and “it seems like they’re taking too long to replace them.”

“I think they’re in more trouble than what they say,” he said.

He said the city has a balanced budget, but he believes that balance was achieved at the expense of the taxpayers.

“It is time for government to re-evaluate their spending,” he said. “Attacking the middle-class people is not the answer.”

Stocker said his administration has been able to accomplish much, even though “the bottom fell out of the economy” when he took office in 2008.

“We sought out grants and loans to complete a lot of projects at very little cost to taxpayers,” he said. “I was able to secure almost $10 million in grants for the city — $2.9 million for the Lower Connector Bridge, Neighborhood Stabilization Funds — $500,000 to tear down [blighted] homes.”

“That was a big thing,” he continued, “because my campaign promise was to clean up Struthers and make it a cleaner, safer community.”

He also said tending to the “little things” has been important. “Are the roads being plowed, is the trash getting picked up? That’s what people notice,” he said.

He said the city didn’t replace a police officer after officers were promoted to chief and captain after Chief Robert Norris retired because of budget constraints. He recently swore in a new firefighter.

Stocker said he is proud of reducing “every fund level in the city.”

“We asked all the department heads to reduce their budgets 10 percent,” he said.

Stocker said that in the next four years, he will focus on having an attractive downtown and getting businesses to come in to the city.