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Budget concerns cause Canfield trustees to reject street-sweeping
CANFIELD
Township trustees rejected legislation by a 1-2 vote to hire a street-sweeping company to sweep township roads.
Trustee Joe Paloski, who voted to approve the measure Tuesday night, said the majority of the roads in the township need to be swept.
Trustee Vice Chairwoman Marie Cartwright, who voted no, said although she agrees the roads need sweeping, a delay is in the township’s best interest financially.
“Since we are still over budget, I’m questioning whether we should delay this until our budget is more in line and see if this is one of the items that we need to revisit or not,” Cartwright said.
Fiscal Officer Carmen Heasley said although the best time for street-sweeping is right after winter, she’s concerned about the budget and the cost of paving the roads.
“It’s my opinion that it needs to be done – having campaigned and walked down these streets, there was rocks and debris everywhere,” Paloski said. “Even if we put this off, we are going to probably approve it anyway.”
When Paloski argued further that some projects “aren’t exactly needed for township hall,” Heasley countered that township- hall projects come from a completely separate fund. Township-hall projects come from the general fund, and the street-sweeping funds would come from the road department’s permissive road fund.
Although Trustee Chairman Brian Governor seconded the motion, he cast the other “no” vote, noting the importance in waiting to see what paving the roads is going to cost the township.
“I just feel like we’re going to do it later in the year anyways, so, why not now?” Paloski said.
In other business, trustees approved four bids, two for lawn maintenance, one for mulch for the park and one for phone services for township hall, all to be paid – funding for all the bids came out of the general fund.
Trustees approved contracts of $6,450 for mowing in Canfield Township Park from Easton (Pa.) Lawn Service; $1,320 for fertilization in the park from Todd’s Enviroscape Inc., 7727 Paris Ave., Louisville; $1,891 for fall protection safety mulch for the playground from Playworld Midstates, 5828 Zarley St., New Albany; and $5,200 for a phone system from Perigee Business Technologies, 1112 N. Meridian Road, Youngstown.
Cartwright said the new phone system is necessary.
“The current phone system is outdated and definitely is not working properly,” Cartwright said.
The next meeting will be delayed a half-hour due to a state-auditor fraud class that trustees will be attending at Mahoning County Career and Technical Center from 5 to 7 p.m. April 12. The trustees meeting will start at 7:30 p.m.