Trumbull commissioners could vote on Newton Falls annexation Wednesday

By Ed Runyan | February 3, 2017 at 12:00a.m.

WARREN

The Trumbull County commissioners on Wednesday will review the petitions associated with the proposed annexation of 440 acres near the Ohio Turnpike Exit in Braceville and Newton townships into Newton Falls.

Commissioners interim administrator Paulette Godfrey made the announcement this week at the commissioners’ regular meeting. It’s possible the commissioners will vote on the annexation that day.

Godfrey and Commissioner Frank Fuda explained the proposal does not call for the commissioners to have a hearing, but there are specific steps the commissioners must take in public before they make a decision on whether to approve or reject the proposal.

The public part of those steps will occur at 10:30 a.m. during the next regular commissioners’ meeting, Fuda said. The meeting will be in the fifth floor meeting room in the County Administration Building, 160 High St. NW on Courthouse Square.

Fuda reiterated what Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa said earlier: The commissioners are bound by Ohio law in what they can and cannot do regarding the proposal.

“Our decision is yes they did or no they didn’t” follow the requirements of Ohio law in their application for the annexation, Fuda said of the village and the handful of property owners who are asking for the annexation.

If they followed the requirements, the commissioners are required to approve the annexation. If they did not, they are required to turn it down, Cantalamessa said.

A large number of residents of Braceville Township attended a township trustees’ meeting last month to devise a strategy to fight the proposal, which trustees said will cost the township $60,000 to $70,000 in annual hotel/motel taxes and prevent the township from benefiting from future development in that area.

In other business, Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk, Trumbull County coroner, announced a candidate for medical examiner for the county will be here Tuesday and Wednesday to decide whether she will accept the position.

Dr. Germaniuk, 63, said he has been working 13 months to find someone to share the load of county autopsies. Such people are in short supply, he added.

Germaniuk told commissioners during his budget hearing in December the cost to hire a second person is about $200,000 annually. His annual salary is $121,000.

Germaniuk plans to retire at the end of his current term in office in four years, and the 328 autopsies he carried out in 2016 is about 100 more than one person should do, he said.

The county will have a record of about 100 overdose deaths in 2016 when all are counted, he said.