City Council Passes Ordinances, Turns to Redistricting

The Cuyahoga Falls City Council passed four road project applications for funding through the Akron Metropolitan Transportation Study (AMATS) Monday night, including a new project to pave a short stretch of Main Street between Howe Avenue and the Akron city limits. All four passed on 10-0 votes, with Mark Ihasz absent.

The Public Improvement Committee briefly convened to pass the Main Street project to the whole council because it has a November deadline for submission.

The council passed an ordinance that will pass on the cost of emergency cleanup of toxic materials at meth lab raids to the meth lab operator or the owner of the property. Potentially, a landlord or third-party car owner could be subject to this collection. Cleanup costs as much as $2,000 per meth lab site, police say.

The council also passed an ordinance bringing Cuyahoga Falls storm water pollution prevention into compliance with Ohio EPA regulations.

For the rest of the evening the council discussed the 10-year redistricting plans, including a new “Plan B” to address objections to an earlier proposal. The 10-year redistricting is required to reflect population shifts as recorded in the 2010 U.S. Census.

Plan A could have affected the which ward might have been represented by City Council candidate Marianne Sandy, who is currently in Ward 4, a seat now held by . The Plan A changes would have placed her in Ward 3, now served by Kenneth E. Barnhart.

Councilman Dan Walters, chairman of the redistricting committee, said he would schedule the next committee meeting for 6:45 Nov. 7 after other committee meetings already set for Nov. 7.

Some council members and members in the audience asked if a third “combination” plan could be discussed, which Walters didn’t rule out, although he said the plan must be in place in December and time is running out.