DePew: Crime and safety are DePew’s top priorities, he said. He’s hearing from constituents that they don’t feel safe in their neighborhoods and overall in the community.

To strengthen safety in the city, DePew would like to work on recruiting and retaining police officers. He points to a 0.5% income tax increase residents passed a few years ago, Issue 13. He’d like to use this new revenue to help bolster police and fire.

“That was the promise that we [were] given to approve this tax increase. Now, I know that the police department has tried to bring people in, but the problem is, they have to wait so long to reach tenure,” DePew said. “I think that we need to lower the tenure to keep and retain the officers that come in.”

He’d also like for police to get out into the community more and restore trust with citizens. He said many young people, in particular, do not trust the police.

“I believe that we need to, have to go back to our bicycle patrols and have our police officers meeting with the community and talking with the community. I believe that we need to work with our community leaders, you know, to get the voices of the people and find out, you know, their voices, because we all live in different neighborhoods and every neighborhood has their own unique situations around the city,” he said.

DePew would like to work with organizations such as the Stark County NAACP to try to bring back trust.

“I think that it would be important because they represent a large part of our community, and I believe that if we can work with them and they'll help us solve some of the crime, you know, and then of course getting our youth not to be afraid of the police department,” DePew said.

He’d also like the police to be better trained on de-escalation techniques when responding to calls.

Sherer: Sherer would like to work with the police department to boost recruitment efforts to get more patrol officers on staff. The city is about 30 officers short of where they need to be, he said.

A key reason for this seems to be that qualified candidates are instead taking jobs in surrounding communities, such as Akron, Louisville and Jackson Township, Sherer said.

“We’re paying these young cadets that go through the academy, and it takes about 12 months before you can put them on the street,” Sherer said. “By the time we finally put them on the street, they're getting a taste of what it's really like to be a Canton cop. And they're basically saying, ‘Hey, this is not for me.’”

Sherer points to the city’s collective bargaining agreement, the city’s contract with the police union, as a place to look for potential solutions.

He’d like to look at the agreement and work together with those involved to figure out ways to become more comparable with other cities.

“There’s a lot of things that I want to see us do with more traffic enforcement and other areas and start building the trust in our neighborhoods, but we have got to figure out a way,” Sherer said. “We’re going to sit down, put our heads together and figure out a way that we can get our numbers up with our safety forces and keep them at a stable level.”

He’d also like to improve traffic law enforcement and other safety priorities, but improving retention has to come first, he said.

He’d also like police to continue to rebuild trust in the community in the aftermath of the Williams shooting, Sherer said.

Under Chief John Gabbard’s leadership, the department is improving police and community relations, Sherer said.

“I think the perception is getting better, but we still have a long way to go. We need to continue to build trust back, you know, back with the constituents who live in our city,” Sherer said.

DePew: Pointing to his experience as a businessman, DePew said the economy is one of his top priorities for the city. DePew would prioritize bringing higher-paying and factory jobs into Canton.

DePew added that bringing in better jobs could also help improve the high crime and poverty rates.

“Higher poverty brings more crime, lower poverty brings less crime. So, you know, we need to bring higher businesses or higher paying jobs into the city to lower our poverty levels, which I believe will help with the crime level,” he said.

Republic Steel recently idled production at its plant in Canton, which employed Stark County residents for years. That building and plot of land on the city’s southeast side could be used for development of new businesses, DePew said.

He’d also like to prioritize new businesses downtown, particularly retail businesses.

Efforts to revitalize the downtown area are ongoing. In 2021, Canton officials opened a park downtown called Centennial Plaza, home to events including First Fridays put on by ArtsinStark, a local nonprofit.

“We have some retail, but we need to bring more, especially the work that they put into the Centennial Plaza and the First Fridays, our big thing,” DePew said. “They throw some concerts down there, so more retail would bring more people into the city.”

When it comes to the Hall of Fame Village, DePew looks forward to seeing the project come fully to fruition. DePew plans to work with the Chamber of Commerce to coordinate events and festivals downtown and in other areas of the city during high tourism times.

“When people come in and they're spending a lot of time around the village, they're going to spend their money in the restaurants, and I believe there's a hotel going up. But we need to bring people to come in more into the city itself,” DePew said.

He added that economic development and job creation may also help bring in revenue for the city that could go toward infrastructure.

He’d like to support local business owners who want to make repairs to their buildings.

“I would like to work with city council on, working on ways that we can give tax breaks to our current businesses here so they can work on their buildings, so they can work on roofing and lift the face of their buildings,” DePew said. “That would try to help make our city look better. I don’t know if I can do that, but I’m going to work on it.”

Sherer: Canton’s business community is “flourishing,” Sherer said. He’d like to focus on creating and retaining small businesses in the area, as well as encouraging young people to work in the trades industry.

While job creation is important, there are plenty of open positions that haven’t been filled, particularly in the trades, he added.

The city must also be more “aggressive” with annexation and changing the zoning code to ensure that large, high-paying industries want to create jobs there, Sherer added.

In 2021, city council annexed a strip of land from Plain Township and changed zoning laws in order to bring in an Amazon fulfillment center to the area. Sherer points to that project as an example of what needs to continue.

The project created an estimated 1,000 new jobs.

“The city of Canton survives on income tax, so it's going to be very important that we have an aggressive position on economic development,” Sherer said.

Sherer said the city can provide input and economic strategies, but officials can no longer offer financial support for the Hall of Fame Village project.

“We can be there to help them. But as far as … financing and funding projects out there, that's just not a reality,” Sherer said. “Us just giving somebody millions of dollars to help fund a project, I don't think that's really in the equation. I mean, there's so many other priorities that we have within the city right now.”

The city approved a $5 million loan to the HOF Village in 2022 for infrastructure improvements. County officials also lent the project $5 million.

On the campaign trail, Sherer has heard from many residents that they’d like the government’s focus to be returned to neighborhoods, rather than downtown and Hall of Fame Village development, he added.

“I want to see the Hall of Fame Village be successful, but they are going to have to make it on their own,” Sherer said. “We can still be there to support them, but we have to start investing in the neighborhoods and the city. And I just believe that hasn't happened.”

Sherer added that he’s excited to see the project continue to grow, and it will ultimately help the city grow because the property has been annexed into the city.

DePew: If elected mayor, DePew plans to work with the Canton City School District as much as he can to ensure that test scores continue to improve and to keep the schools going in the right direction, he said.

Safety in schools is his biggest priority, he added.

“This year, they put in metal detectors in the school to try to focus on the safety of the children. And that's got to be number one,” DePew said. “I believe Canton City took a very strong approach to, because you want to send your kids to school, you want to send your kids to school and make sure they're coming home from school.”

In addition to the city’s public schools, DePew would work with private and charter schools as well. He pointed to private schools like Heritage Christian School, a K-12 Christian-based school.

“I believe the city needs to be helping them out as well, you know, because they have a different approach on their education and it's still a state education, but I believe wholeheartedly in these private sectors as well.”

Sherer: Improving education in the city is crucial to Sherer, he said.

“When I talk about moving the city forward, Canton City Schools has to be in the mix,” he said.

A big priority for Sherer, he said, is encouraging young people to stay in Canton after they graduate. To do so, he’d like to promote opportunities for them to work for the city.

“Maybe they want to be a firefighter or a Canton cop, or they might want to work for the sanitation department. We’ve got a pool of young people right now that we're just trying to keep here,” Sherer said.

Another important priority, though, is to increase opportunities for children while they are in school, he added.

He'd like to see more career outreach for kids and promoting various opportunities after high school, from college, to the military, to the building trades.

“I can only speak on behalf of the ironworkers and the building trades, and we've done a very good job of trying to reach out and have an aggressive position on trying to educate, you know, these kids and and the counselors in school and trying to … at least let them know that there's opportunities out there,” Sherer said.

The key to making connections with kids while they’re in school is to have more outreach, he added. For example, the former welding teacher at McKinley used to feed dozens of students into the Ironworkers Apprenticeship, and that is no longer happening now that he left.

“We didn't have one person, one kid apply,” he added. “But we're just one employer out of how, how many other employers in this county, in the city? And I know that we can do better than that.”

Sherer said outreach could begin as early as middle school.

“You’re trying to plant a seed, and you're also trying to plant the seed with the parents,” Sherer said.