Meet the Republican candidate for Canton City mayor: Roy Scott DePew
CANTON – You can call him Roy. Most of his longtime friends call him Scott.
His name will appear on city election ballots this November as Roy Scott DePew.
“Just don’t call me late for dinner,” quipped DePew when asked about his name preference.
DePew, 54, is the Republican candidate for Canton City mayor, seeking to succeed Mayor Thomas Bernabei who has elected to not seek a third term. His opponent is William V. Sherer II, vice chair for the Stark County Democratic Party and current Canton City Council president.
Who is Roy Scott DePew?
DePew was born in Canton and spent much of his childhood in Canton on the move with his mother, brother and sister until his mother remarried in 1980.
In his six years as an elementary student, DePew attended five different city schools: Clarendon, Gibbs, Washington, Summit and Worley.
He then attended Lehman Middle School and McKinley High School, where he was a member of the high school’s law enforcement club and learned about various facets of the law. He thought he might like to become a lawyer.
But three months into his junior year, DePew turned 18, which in his family meant that it was time for him to move out and get a job.
He quit attending traditional classes to work at nearby fast-food restaurants so he could pay his rent.
A year later, in December 1987, DePew was a passenger in a car that lost control and flipped over in Pike Township. DePew still vividly recalls waking up in the overturned car, trying to pull his friend from the driver’s seat and then running to the nearest house for help. The woman, 19, died from her injuries.
“When you lose somebody at 19 years old, it tends to wake you up,” he said.
DePew rededicated himself to finishing high school and enrolled in Canton Public Evening High School, where he graduated with his GED diploma in 1991.
“Where other kids were out running around, I was working two jobs and paying my rent and stuff like that,” he said. “It was a little rough, but I was dedicated to it. I knew you needed to graduate. Without a diploma, you go nowhere and become a statistic.”
On the issues: Q&A with Canton mayoral candidate William Sherer II
On the issues: Q&A with Canton mayoral candidate Roy Scott DePew
Roy Scott DePew: 'I love my city'
DePew, who had worked a few months with his dad at Republic Steel, tried a few other factory jobs before deciding to go into the financial industry, becoming a mortgage loan officer, selling life insurance and helping people with fixed investments. He also operated his own flat-bed trucking business briefly until the fuel prices in 2008 made it too difficult to continue.
He now works as a logistical transportation specialist for Online Freight, a company he has been with for roughly a decade. But most of his earnings come from working as a notary, where he signs documents for mortgages and files documents for companies at county offices.
DePew married Breanna Kortis, a 1999 McKinley High School graduate, in June 2006 and they settled into a home in Canton Ward 3’s Harter Heights, where they still live today with their dog, a beagle-bulldog mix named Buster.
“We could have gone anywhere but I wanted my kids to stay in Canton City Schools,” DePew said. “We’re from Canton City, and we know Canton City. I love my city.”
Their oldest daughter, Brittannie, 33, now lives in Texas, and their youngest daughter, Kayla, 29, lives in Akron where she works as an elevator salesperson at Nidec Motor Corporation in Green and studies business at Kent State University.
Kayla, in a letter of support for her father, said she grew up watching her dad helping people without judgment or reservation.
“Any time (day or night) you call on my dad, he’s there with a toolkit and a flashlight to help,” she wrote. “… From giving a local family in need household furniture to simply giving someone a ride to work, my dad taught me how to be a leader by the quality of care he shows his community in direct action.”
Kayla, who competed last year as Miss Akron and in the Miss Ohio pageant, said her father encouraged her to pursue her passions, even when it meant volunteering with the Stark County Democratic Party and the Obama re-election campaign.
“My dad supported me in exploring how I sought to deploy my sense of civic duty despite our differing party platforms,” she wrote. “Whether it was my choice of hobbies, books or the music I listened to, he always encouraged me to be thoughtful and stay authentic.”
How DePew became a Republican
DePew has been surrounded by a mix of Republicans and Democrats his entire life.
His father was a Democrat who was involved with Republic Steel’s employee union. DePew’s stepfather was a Republican who worked as a salesman.
“It humbled me to look at all sides of everything,” DePew said. “It made me more of a thinker than a talker.”
DePew decided he was a Republican around age 19.
While working at Republic Steel, DePew attended his first union meeting where they urged him to register to vote.
“I didn’t want to make a decision, but I got a letter in the mail later that said I was a registered Democrat,” DePew recalled. “I just felt like my freedom of choice got violated and I didn’t like that at all. That made my decision (to vote Republican).”
As he’s grown older, DePew said his values have continued to align with the Republican Party.
“I’m more of a conservative type of person,” he said. “I’m a big believer in our Second Amendment. I believe in our Constitution. I’m a big believer in freedom of religion regardless of which religion you choose.”
He doesn’t believe a single political party should control the governance of a city. Canton currently has a Democratic mayor, a Democratic council president and 12 Democratic council members.
“The letter before your name should not matter when running a city’s government,” he said. “We’re a city of 70,000 people and we have to take everybody into consideration. We need everybody that works for our constituents to be working in a more bipartisan manner.”
When asked which Canton mayors he admired, DePew complimented current mayor Bernabei, a Democrat, for bringing the city out of a significant budget deficit. He also cited Richard Watkins, a Republican who served as mayor from 1992 to 2003, and lauded Janet Weir Creighton, the city’s first female mayor and its last Republican chief who served from 2004 to 2007. (Information has been corrected to fix an error. See correction below. 12:30 p.m. Oct. 8.)
“Creighton was phenomenal,” DePew said. “… We had a lot of garbage in and around the downtown area, and she took an army of trash trucks and threw everything away. When she talked about cleaning up the town, she did it with authority.”
He credits Creighton, who now serves as the chair of the Stark County Republican Party and is a Stark County commissioner, with giving him the idea to run for office.
Creighton said she gave DePew what she calls her “menu of opportunities,” which are the elected offices that he qualified for based on his certifications and residency. She was surprised that he chose to run for mayor since he hasn’t yet served in an elected office but supports his candidacy because she believes people need choices when they go to vote.
“I’ve witnessed him going door to door and Cantonians really look at him as a good neighbor,” Creighton said. “Roy Scott is a good guy and he can relate to people. He’s really down to earth.”
DePew: ‘This is more God-led for me than anything.’
DePew spent two weeks talking with his wife and praying before he decided to run for mayor.
“This is more God-led for me than anything,” he said. “… I’m a big believer that let God’s will be done, not mine.”
DePew hasn’t shied from his Christian beliefs during his campaign. He includes the Scripture reference Exodus 18:21 on his campaign signs. The Facebook cover photo of his personal page is a picture of him getting rebaptized in December after his sister died in November.
If elected, one of DePew’s goals is to bring at least 10 church services to Centennial Plaza on Sundays as a way to give those who cannot attend a traditional service the opportunity to worship.
“I believe everything we talk about and everything we do, nothing is going to happen if we don’t have God’s grace over the city,” said DePew, who is a member of The Father’s House Church at 3951 Fulton Drive NW. “… There’s so much anger amongst the citizens, and that’s not going to change because we changed this law or that law.”
Reducing crime would be a priority
The July 2020 shooting that killed 1-year-old Ace Lucas and injured his twin brother, ArCel, is what prompted DePew to begin examining the city’s leadership. Reports that list Canton among the most dangerous cities in Ohio prompted him to campaign for mayor.
If elected, he would seek to invest more money into the city Police Department to bring it to its full staffing of 175 officers, which he believes would allow officers to take the time they need to have positive interactions with the public. He also would examine ways to better retain existing city officers, such as raising Canton’s officer pay to better compete with the salaries of similar-sized cities and restructuring the department’s pay scale to allow officers to reach the maximum pay level sooner.
He also believes reducing Canton’s high poverty rate and increasing funding for mental health programs also are keys to lowering the city’s crime rate.
DePew believes the best way to address the city’s poverty rate, which stood at 30% in 2022, is to bring more business into the city. He would prefer to bring industry to the city, rather than service or retail jobs. He believes the recently idled Republic Steel property is a prime opportunity for a new type of industry to come to the city.
“I believe we need factory work and higher paying jobs to get people back to work,” he said. “That’s the only way we are going to solve our crime issue. You can put 1,000 or 2,000 police officers out there, and it’s not going to matter as long as people are struggling to feed their families.”
DePew also wants to invest in the city’s infrastructure, particularly repairing dilapidated roads, and in cleaning up city neighborhoods.
Reach Repository staff writer Kelli Weir at 330-580-8339 or kelli.weir@cantonrep.com.
CORRECTION: Richard Watkins is a former Republican mayor of Canton. His first name was incorrect when this story first published.
On the issues
The Canton Repository asked both Canton mayoral candidates to answer a series of questions on issues facing the city. You can read their answers at CantonRep.com:
Roy Scott DePew: https://tinyurl.com/4y8hs97e
William Sherer II: https://tinyurl.com/2p8x99au
Who is Canton Democratic mayoral candidate William V. Sherer II?
To read the Canton Repository's profile of Democratic mayoral candidate William Sherer II that was published in March 2023, visit https://tinyurl.com/WilliamShererProfile.
Meet the Canton mayoral candidates
The Future of Canton: 2023 Mayoral Debate will begin at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Cultural Center Theater at 1001 Market Ave. N. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. with a cash bar and hors d’oeuvres available.
Tickets are required. They are $20 each and are available at the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce’s website at https://tinyurl.com/CantonMayorDebate2023. The money generated from ticket sales will be used to pay for the theater rental and other operational expenses. Any profit will be donated to a local charity.
The forum is hosted by the Canton Repository, Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce and Ideastream Public Media.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Roy Scott DePew is the Republican candidate for Canton City mayor
