Shaker: Ties with Niles community sealed victory in race for city judge

May 3, 2017 at 12:08a.m.

NILES

Chris Shaker says he thinks the people of Niles, Weathersfield and McDonald liked the fact that he and the three other candidates for Niles Municipal Court ran a race focused on the issues.

But his relationships with the people of the community over his 33 years of legal practice in Niles made the difference, he added.

“They are all really nice people. They have nice families. They ran a very clean campaign,” Shaker said of his opponents during his victory party at Vernon’s Cafe. Shaker is now the Democratic nominee and faces an independent candidate in November.

“I think they believed in my experience and the fact that I’ve been in the community for 33 years,” he said, adding that when he talked to voters, he realized how many he knew from school activities, his legal practice and the many other experiences in his and his family’s life.

In complete but unofficial voting, with all 86 precincts reporting, Shaker had 1,444 votes, with John Gargano second with 826, Gil Blair with 793 and Terry Swauger with 601.

Shaker does not face a Republican challenger in November, but he does face independent Kara Stanford of Niles, who has served as an acting judge in Niles.

The race was crowded and included a lot of well-known attorneys. Races for an open judgeships typically draw a lot of candidates. This job pays $125,850 per year, only a little less than county common pleas court judges, who make $133,850.

Shaker’s father, the late Mitchell F. Shaker, was a long-time Trumbull County Common Pleas judge.

Longtime Niles Municipal Court Judge Thomas Townley chose not to seek another six-year term when his current term expires at the end of this year.

The four candidates in the Demoratic primary are all well known, including two men who currently work as prosecutors in Niles and Warren, one with a well paying job running a county department and one whose family holds a prominent place in county legal circles.

The two men who have worked the most in a municipal courtroom are Swauger of Niles, who is Niles prosecutor and recently became Niles law director; and Blair of Weathersfield Township who is both a Warren prosecutor and a Weathersfield Township trustee.

The other candidate, Gargano, of Niles, is director of Trumbull County Job and Family Services and former longtime Niles acting judge.

Each of the candidates brought to the campaign ideas for updating the court, such as adding specialty dockets to address the opiate crisis, blight and mental health.

The court handles criminal and civil cases originating in Niles, McDonald and Weathersfield Township.

Blair said he’d use some of the effective ideas used in Warren to better address blight and also make drug treatment available at all stages of the court process.

Swauger said he’d want to create a mental-health court in Niles, something Warren doesn’t have; and he said Niles Municipal Court should collaborate with the drug-treatment courts in Girard and Newton Falls.

Gargano said there’s work to do to address the opiate crisis, but his positions stressed reducing costs associated with the legal system, such as reviewing sentencing options to reduce the county jail population.

Shaker said he supported the idea of creating a drug court but said his main priority is to operate the court cost efficiently because Niles has been in fiscal emergency since October 2014.