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Canfield council officially adds amendments to city charter
By ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
City council officially amended its charter to include two new amendments.
A motion, unanimously approved at Wednesday’s meeting, made way for the amendments spearheaded by Frank Micchia that Canfield voters approved in November.
They make it so that the police chief, finance director, zoning inspector and a public works foreman will give reports at city council meetings, and residents can question those reports.
Canfield residents can give public comment before a final vote by council. Those comments are limited to three minutes each and a maximum of 30 minutes on any one issue.
City Manager Joe Warino also said that council meetings will begin with a caucus at 5:30 p.m., with the meeting usually beginning about 10 minutes later, due to the changes.
Council appointed the following people to boards, commissions and committees: Phillip E. Roudbush and Julio Williams, planning and zoning commission; Enid Maldonado, parks, recreation and cemetery; and John Morvay and Michael Clayton to the fire board of the Cardinal Joint Fire District.
Morvay is the city council representative and Clayton is the city resident on the board, and those appointments are renewed annually, Warino explained. Maldonado takes Bob Minkler’s position, who reached his term limit.
City council will meet again at 5:30 p.m. Jan. 5 to select a new council president. Steve Rogers, currently the council president, will remain on council.
During his report, Warino talked about city workers’ discovering that a lamppost had three-quarters of its base gone. He said those lampposts were installed sometime between 2005 and 2008 and that deterioration justifies the city’s stance on not allowing groups to hang banners on them.
Canfield First Night has applied to council in the past to hang banners as a fundraiser and to raise awareness for the event.
Warino also talked about new traffic cameras in the city along U.S. Route 224. “They’re not traffic cameras in the sense that they will ticket people,” he said. “That’s not the purpose of the cameras.” The purpose is traffic control.
Police also can make the lights go to red when approaching an intersection with their emergency lights activated. Once through, the lights go back to the place they were in the cycle of that intersection.