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Canfield Township residents give input on Gibson Road
CANFIELD
Township residents offered input on a Gibson Road project in its early stages and what they think trustees should focus on.
Lowell Seibert of Gibson Road said at Tuesday night’s meeting he has the impression the board isn’t addressing the whole problem of Gibson Road.
Gibson is narrow and hole-ridden, with chunks of pavement missing every few feet. It is a former cow-pasture road the township took over from Mahoning County.
Seibert discussed concerns about a hill and deep dip in the road just off his driveway.
“It’s just unsafe and a huge hazard for everyone coming up that street, and it needs properly addressed,” he said.
Seibert said the issue stems back to a recently passed ordinance prohibiting township construction vehicles from using Timber Run Road.
The city of Canfield now prohibits certain truck traffic on Timber Run, a road between Westbury Park Development in Canfield Township and Stonebridge Development in the city, due to public concern about high traffic volume in Stonebridge.
The alternative route is taking Gibson Road, something Seibert said creates even more of a risk to township residents than the high traffic volume to those in the city.
He suggested sending the cost of fixing the road to the city.
“If they don’t want people coming through the development [Stonebridge], they can pay to not have people come through the development,” Seibert said. “Fair is fair.”
Trustee Chairman Brian Governor said the prospective plan is to skim-coat the first 1,500 feet to make it driveable until they are able to fix it long-term.
Governor said an engineering study will be done on the road to assess the best way to begin the project.
“We need to learn a lot more information before we do anything,” said Marie Cartwright, trustee vice-chairwoman.
In other news, Maj. Jeffrey Allen of the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department gave a quarterly update from the department about criminal activity in the township.
Since January, he said, there were four domestic- violence arrests, three burglaries, two robberies, two weapons arrests, three menacing cases and two drug arrests.