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Canfield council approves three grants
BY ROBERT CONNELLY
CANFIELD
City officials approved three grants for police upgrades and a sidewalk project.
Council approved budget additions of $103,033. Of that, $46,966 was directed to the street and police departments. City Manager Joe Warino explained that the money will be used for two new police grants that later will be reimbursed and a street design project.
Those three programs are to install a sidewalk on both sides of East Main Street; ballistic shields for the police department, worth $5,200 through the federal Justice Assistance Grant; and a neighborhood patrol program, worth $6,666 also with JAG.
The city’s local share of the ballistic-shield purchase is $1,300, and the patrol local share is $666.
Warino said the shields would be delivered after the middle of July after all the paperwork is cleared. He added the patrols would start around the same time. That program pays the overtime pay for an officer to go into the city neighborhoods during different times of different days to prevent burglaries of vehicles and homes.
Police Chief Chuck Colucci originally had asked for ballistic shields during a managers’ meeting discussing this year’s fiscal budget for the city. At that time, Colucci was asked to look for grants and sent in the application to JAG in the spring. A shield will be in each police vehicle.
“The shields will increase our effectiveness to respond to active shooter incidents and allow us to uphold one of the components of our mission statement: To protect life,” Colucci said. The shields will be used by first-responders to any kind of terrorist event or shooting.
Another grant through JAG was awarded for the extra officer patrolling to prevent burglaries. That one is called residential neighborhood patrols fund.
Warino said there will be sidewalks installed on both sides of East Main street, from the Get-Go gas station by the ramps to state Route 11 on U.S. Route 224 all the way to the Village Green downtown. He said a lot of that sidewalk was broken, and city officials had been looking at this project for a while because the area is highly used.
“Every bit of 65 to 70 percent of the walk” had been broken, Warino said. “Had we not been successful with the grant ... [the city] would have [had to] put this cost on the property owners, and we certainly didn’t want to do that.”
The city approved MS Consultants Inc. to come up with a design and plan for the sidewalk project. The consultation contract is for $45,000 out of the street fund. Once the design is complete, bidding for the contract is open to anyone across the state.