In his first month as Canton mayor, one of Bill Sherer II's biggest challenges has been recruitment efforts for the city’s understaffed police department, he said.
The department has about 150 officers – 110 of them on patrol – and needs about 180, he said.
“Our numbers are the lowest they’ve ever been,” Sherer said. “A cop in today’s environment is not a popular thing … we are competing against other communities, but the city is not going to move forward without safety and we have got to get our numbers up.”
Additionally, many officers are retiring, Sherer said.
The mayor said he’s looking to hire a communications director who could help get the word out about recruitment, Sherer added. He also wants to improve overall communications with residents.
“We’re a statutory city. We survive on income tax. We’re not going to raise taxes; we’re going to have to survive on what we have, and we need to do a much better job of communicating,” Sherer said. “It’s going to be imperative to hire somebody.”
The city does not have a robust communication strategy, Sherer said.
“That’s long overdue, and I can see that department growing,” he said.
City officials are receiving applications for a director of communications and hope to hire someone within the next few weeks, he said.
He also plans to do a listening tour.
“We’re going to do town halls and listening tours throughout the city and promoting what my vision was during the campaign about investing in our neighborhoods, one block at a time,” Sherer said. “But we also have to have the ability to listen to what the concerns of the constituents are.”
Sherer and Canton water department officials welcomed representatives from the federal and state Environmental Protection Agencies Thursday to highlight a $46 million improvement project at the city’s largest water treatment plant, the Sugar Creek Water Treatment Plant in Tuscarawas County.
Funds from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021 helped pay for the first major overhaul of the plant since it was built in the 1960s, Canton Water Superintendent Tyler Converse said.
“You really want to do a major renovation every 20 to 25 years, so it was overdue,” Converse said. “That’s why when we went into it this time, it was really comprehensive. We really had to touch almost every part of the building and operations and wellfield.”
The project will help keep drinking water clean and create jobs for the region, Converse added.
Converse led U.S. Rep. Emilia Strong Sykes and Deputy U.S. EPA Administrator Bruno Pigott on a tour of the water department’s headquarters on the city’s northeast side and talked about the ongoing improvements.
The Sugar Creek plant serves about 70,000 residents, he said. The project is expected to be completed by 2026.
