Canton Council at-large race: Five candidates competing for three seats
CANTON – Centennial Plaza has become a centerpiece for events and entertainment. Businesses are returning to downtown Canton. And the Hall of Fame Village has launched its next phase of development.
Candidates for Canton City Council’s three at-large seats say now is the time for the city to focus on its neighborhoods.
City voters on Nov. 7 have five candidates to choose from for council's three at-large seats. The five candidates are Democratic Councilman James O. Babcock, Republican candidate Kerry Jane Dougherty, Democratic Councilman Louis P. Giavasis, nonparty candidate and former Councilman Richard Hart, and Democratic candidate Crystal Smith.
Bill Smuckler, who served on City Council for more than 30 years in various roles, did not seek re-election as an at-large councilman. He lost his bid to become Canton’s mayor in the May Democratic primary.
The council at-large winners will join Canton’s nine ward council members and new Canton Council President Kristen Bates Aylward starting Jan. 1. Only the Ward 2 seat is contested this election.
Council members, who are responsible for allocating city funds, setting employee compensation and enacting ordinances and resolutions relating to city services, taxes, and planning and development, serve two-year terms at an annual salary of $21,627.
Let’s meet the candidates (listed alphabetically):
James O. Babcock
Babcock, a Democrat who has been on council since 2012, wants to continue focusing on neighborhoods, safety and road paving.
“These are the issues that we continue to work with all year long,” said Babcock, 73, who hasn’t missed a council meeting in his nearly 12-year council career.
The Realtor and Ward 3 resident said council has made good progress in improving neighborhoods by upgrading parks and playgrounds and by demolishing most of the blighted homes.
“We tore all these blighted houses down, which has really helped the neighborhoods,” said Babcock, a former property complaints manager for the Stark County Auditor’s Office. “That helps someone who has lived in their house for 20 years and has kept their house up but had this old house beside them that brought down their (property) value. Now the values are all back up where they should be.”
The 1967 Central Catholic High School graduate believes council needs to do more to help residents feel safe.
“I want to continue giving police and fire the resources they need so they can give the citizens (the service) they deserve,” said Babcock, son of the late Mary Babcock, a city councilwoman for 24 years, and the late Charles Babcock, who was Canton’s mayor from 1958 to 1961.
For roads, he supports the administration’s strategy of reconstructing damaged roads so they last longer, rather than the previous approach of sealing or repaving as a temporary measure.
Babcock said he remains supportive of the Hall of Fame Village but doesn’t necessarily support giving or loaning its developers additional money.
“I think we’ve given them quite a bit right now,” he said, referring to the $5 million that council loaned to village developers in 2022.
Kerry Jane Dougherty
Dougherty, who was unopposed in the Republican primary election, said she chose to seek an at-large seat after continuously driving over the city’s deteriorated roads.
“The streets were knocking the soul out of my body,” said Dougherty, who is legally disabled after being injured by a malfunctioning elevator 10 years ago.
Dougherty, a 1983 GlenOak High School graduate who has worked as a restaurant manager for 30 years, as a paralegal and as a Medicare enrollment specialist, then began looking at other troubling aspects of the city, such as the crime rate.
“Canton needs some younger, fresher faces sitting there, and not necessarily all from the same party,” said Dougherty, 58, who ran for council roughly 20 years ago. “I don’t think that is a recipe for winning.”
The Ward 3 resident who started the Harter Heights Area Neighborhood Association believes council needs to work more with neighborhood associations to help improve the communities.
“Once you get people motivated, they really do want to make their area better,” said Dougherty, daughter of longtime Canton lawyer and community leader Ronald Dougherty.
She also wants to evaluate and address the multitude of permits, inspections and deposits that small business owners must navigate when trying to launch in Canton.
“It’s easy-peasy when you have to pull permits for an Applebee’s or a Walmart, but when you’re like Kerry’s Cupcake Creations and you want to open a store in downtown Canton, there’s so many hoops that you have to jump through,” said Dougherty, who holds bachelor’s degrees in hospitality food service management and human resource management from Kent State University. “I think we need to look at (whether) all those are necessary hoops.”
Louis P. Giavasis
Giavasis, who was the top vote-getter in the Democratic primary, believes the city needs to invest more in its neighborhoods, safety forces and infrastructure.
“The prime attention, at least before I came on council, had been more toward the development of downtown and Hall of Fame Village,” said Giavasis, 58, who was elected to council in 2021. “Those are going to be two great investments for the city, but now we have to look at all the streets and roads that lead to both of those places.”
The 1984 McKinley High School graduate who spent 24 years as a Plain Township trustee said he supports the city’s more recent approach to road repairs. Instead of simply repaving, city engineers are rebuilding the roads to address the root causes of the deterioration as well as simultaneously replacing the waterlines, sewers and storm sewers. He believes the city needs to institute a better annual evaluation system so it can prioritize repairs based on road conditions.
Giavasis, who returned to Canton after retiring from the Stark County Clerk of Courts where he spent five of his 13 years as clerk before losing his re-election bid in 2020, also wants more city income tax revenue to be used to help safety forces staffing levels so they can increase their community outreach.
The Ward 9 resident said the additional money could be used to pay police officers at top scale sooner. While officers in other communities could reach the department’s top pay scale in as little as five years, Canton officers must wait 10 years, Giavasis said.
“When you factor in the cost of constantly recruiting, training and the turnover in both of those departments because of the lack of competitiveness with the contracts, it’s costing the city more by doing it the way they are doing it,” he said.
Richard Hart
Hart, who previously has represented Canton’s Ward 7, Ward 10 and as an at-large council member, wants to return as a nonparty candidate to address issues such as safety and building code enforcement.
“Bottom line is that if we don’t have strong neighborhoods, people will leave the city,” said Hart, 69, who taught students with special needs at Canton City Schools for 31 years. “You’re not going to have the downtown development that we need for housing and things like that because who wants to live here if you’re next to some terrible places, and you’re not going to maintain your property value?”
The 1972 Lehman High School graduate and Ward 7 resident said it took police nearly two hours to respond to his home in February 2022 after he reported a burglary.
Hart, whose son is a former Canton police officer, believes the city should have used the $5 million it loaned to the Hall of Fame Village for retaining city police officers. He said a higher starting salary would help Canton keep its newly trained officers and give it adequate staffing to respond quickly to residents.
Hart also believes the city’s code enforcement inspectors need more oversight to ensure they are applying city regulations evenly and accurately.
Hart, who owns nearly a dozen rental properties in Canton, said he once received a letter from a city code enforcement officer with a list of 23 violations for a house he already had demolished. He’s also heard complaints from homeowners who question why their property was cited when a nearby rental house is falling apart or why the city hasn’t demolished certain houses that attract vagrants.
Crystal Smith
Smith, a Democrat who is running for elected office for the first time, wants to bring her small business experience and entrepreneurial spirit to City Council.
“Being that I was born and raised here and I’m currently raising my family here in the city, I believe I know many of the needs our city faces and I think I can help resolve some of those issues should I get elected,” said Smith, 42, who graduated from Timken High School in 1999 and then from the Ohio Media School.
The Ward 3 resident has owned multiple small businesses in Canton, including a childcare business for 10 years before transitioning to owning an agency that provides services for people with developmental disabilities. She opened the Stark Youth Technology Center nearly three years ago as an extension of an afterschool program she ran that taught youth science, technology, engineering and math skills.
Smith, a mother to 10 children including two teenage foster daughters who are nonverbal and autistic, said she has seen how technology can help children thrive. She believes technology also can be used to help businesses grow and to help residents who don’t feel safe in their homes.
Smith, who is a member of the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Stark County Minority Business Association, believes the city should expand its fiber network to every city neighborhood.
She also believes the city also needs to invest in making neighborhoods more functional, such as ensuring that sidewalks and roads are safe and city parks have adequate amenities for youth.
“If you go to some of the parks in the poorer neighborhoods, the parks are just not up to par and I think we should do a better job,” said Smith, who has begun talking with neighborhood associations about their community’s needs.
Reach Canton Repository staff writer Kelli Weir at 330-580-8339 or kelli.weir@cantonrep.com.
Canton City election candidates without opposition
These Canton City candidates are unopposed for the Nov. 7 election and will take office on Jan. 1:
Council President Kristen Bates Aylward
Ward 1 Councilman Greg Hawk
Ward 3 Councilman Jason Scaglione
Ward 4 Chris Smith
Ward 5 Councilman Robert Fisher Jr.
Ward 6 Councilman Kevin D. Hall
Ward 7 Councilman John Mariol
Ward 8 Richard Sacco
Ward 9 Frank Morris III
Auditor Richard A. Mallonn
Law Director Jason P. Reese
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Babcock, Giavasis, Dougherty, Smith, Hart want Canton Council at-large
