Meet Ward 2 Canton Council candidates Brenda Kimbrough, Patrick Wyatt and Veronica Earley
CANTON – The three Canton City Council candidates seeking to represent Ward 2 are as diverse as the ward they want to represent.
Brenda Kimbrough, a Democrat, is seeking re-election to another two-year term, which pays an annual salary of $21,627. She faces Republican Patrick G. Wyatt and nonparty candidate Veronica Earley on the Nov. 7 election ballot.
Ward 2 encompasses downtown Canton and Centennial Plaza, one of the city's largest Hispanic communities, core government services, as well as a portion of the troubled Shorb area and some of the poorest areas of the city. The ward, with just over 4,000 registered voters, includes two of the key neighborhoods identified by the city’s comprehensive plan as essential for the city’s rebirth.
Here’s what to know about the candidates:
Brenda Kimbrough: ‘I started something awfully good in Ward 2’
Kimbrough, who was appointed to council in August 2019 following the resignation of Nate Chester, was elected in November 2019 and re-elected in 2021. She said her years on council have been an extension of her longtime community service.
The 1977 McKinley High School graduate who serves as the president of the Cherry Avenue Neighborhood Developmental Operations (CANDO) said she continues to advocate for the demolition of blighted homes and for road repairs. She also has helped shape Centennial Plaza and helped guide the evolution of downtown Canton. She also has stood up for her constituents, leading efforts to reverse the Stark County Board of Elections' attempts to move polling locations out of Ward 2. Canton Ward 2 voters now vote at Gibbs Elementary or the Timken Career Campus.
Kimbrough, 64, has lived in northeast Canton since age 10. She plans to continue her advocacy for her ward if elected for another two years. Safety is among her priorities.
She supports giving the city police department the resources it needs so officers can take the time off they need to maintain their mental health. She also believes that ward residents, in partnership with police and the faith-based community, must do more on their own to ensure the safety of their neighborhoods. She wants to expand existing crime watch groups and help neighbors get to know each other so they can act as the eyes and ears of their community blocks.
“We have 155 policemen for 70,000 people, so they cannot be everywhere,” said Kimbrough, who supported the city’s adoption of the “8 Can’t Wait” policies aimed at reducing officers’ use of force. “But if we have our own crime watch, and we’re working together in groups and we’re ganging up on this thing, we can make sure these things can turn around.”
Kimbrough, who graduated from the University of Akron with an applied science in educational technology associate degree, believes the faith-based community, including the 10 churches located in Ward 2, could help the residents who need services instead of jail time and could offer children programs to keep them busy and learning, particularly in the summer.
She also wants to continue advocating for a walking track and 3-on-3 basketball court at Nimisilla Park, as well as helping The ABCD Inc. develop “The O’Jays Plaza” along Harrisburg Road NE that will include its new headquarters, a transportation depot, training center, senior housing and commercial retail and restaurant space.
“I started something awfully good in Ward 2, and, of course, I want to see it through,” Kimbrough, a certified community health worker who spent more than 30 years as an office manager at the Stark County Support Network.
Veronica Earley: ‘I’m going to shake things up on that city council’
As a council member, Earley would tackle the issues that compelled her to leave Canton for nearly 12 years.
The 1979 McKinley High School graduate left the city in 2008 after earning her master’s degree in education with a specialization in clinical counseling from Malone University. She had worked as a juvenile probation officer for 28 years but needed a higher paying job to cover her student loans.
“Canton offered so little, and it was getting worse with the crime,” Earley said. “It kind of ran me out.”
Earley joined her son, who stayed in Singapore after leaving the military. She later traveled to Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and China while training teachers how to teach English in a foreign country.
She came home in 2019 for her 40th high school reunion. The coronavirus pandemic prevented her from returning to China.
Earley became a substitute teacher for three years in the Canton City School District, where she found herself addressing disruptive student behaviors more often than teaching.
The 63-year-old now works for OhioRISE, a state-contracted Medicaid program that offers specialized behavioral health care to youth where she’s witnessed the hostile home environments of many children. She believes the trauma is leading children to become criminals.
“You’re not going to stop the violence in the street until you stop the violence in homes and schools,” she said.
Earley decided to seek the Ward 2 seat after council repeatedly failed to address crime or find ways to help city children. She also believed council members too often failed to seek residents’ feedback and didn’t always fully understand legislation before voting.
“I’m going to shake things up on that city council,” she said.
If elected, Earley said, her priority would be to create more opportunities for children where they could go for tutoring and interact with mentors who could help build their self-esteem.
“They pumped all that money into the Hall of Fame (Village), but our kids can’t afford to go to the Hall of Fame,” said Earley, who has two adult sons and five grandchildren.
Other priorities include repairing Ward 2 roads, ensuring streets are plowed in the winter so residents can go to work and advocating for police reform.
Earley, whose brother, Darryl Ross, was killed by police in a 2008 drug raid that his family maintains was unwarranted, wants to revamp the mayor-appointed membership of the Community Relations Commission, which reviews investigations of alleged police officer misconduct and other citizen concerns about city employees. She wants more “average Joe citizens” on the board to hold officers accountable for wrongful actions.
Patrick Wyatt: ‘I’m a person that’s going to help people’
Wyatt, who ran unsuccessfully for council at-large in 2017 and lost by 73 votes to Kimbrough in the Ward 2 council race in 2019, decided to seek the Ward 2 seat again after hearing from a variety of people, including prominent members of the Black community, Republicans, business owners and interested residents.
“What I hear from them is they don’t have a strong voice,” said Wyatt, a 1979 Canton Central Catholic graduate who holds a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Malone University. “That nobody is representing them.”
Wyatt, who ran unopposed in the Republican primary election, says he’s in a better position in his life and career compared with his previous campaigns. The 63-year-old retired in 2021 after 36 years as a senior investigator for Nationwide Insurance and now is in his second year working as the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s operations manager for Centennial Plaza. His two children are starting their own families, and the Carpe Diem Coffee Shop that he and his wife, Cathy, started in downtown Canton is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
Wyatt, who moved to the Historic Onesto Lofts in 2014, said constituents contact him to help with a variety of problems, such as high grass in their neighborhood, a dilapidated home next door, bed bugs in an apartment building and where to find downtown office space for their business.
“I’m a person that’s going to help people,” said Wyatt, who has led a bi-monthly cleanup of downtown Canton for the past three years. “I’m not going to say, ‘No, that’s not my job.’”
He already has the contacts to help them through his years of being a downtown business owner, from previously serving as the president of the Downtown Canton Special Improvement District and from being a board member of the Canton City Board of Health since 2015 and on the Friends of Canton City Parks and Recreation’s board since 2022.
Revitalizing neighborhoods and bolstering the city’s safety forces are priorities for Wyatt, a son of former Canton Police Chief Thomas Wyatt, former part-time officer with the Jackson Township Police Department for 24 years and a special deputy with the Stark County Sheriff’s Office.
He supports the police department’s efforts to increase its positive interactions with residents and wants to explore the idea of creating a police substation in Ward 2 or possibly placing officers in city fire stations so they can better connect with the communities they serve. For neighborhoods, Wyatt said, he would encourage more clean-up efforts and would explore whether city laws need to be revised to give code enforcement officers better tools to pursue absent landlords and keep neighborhoods clean.
Reach Canton Repository staff writer Kelli Weir at 330-580-8339 or kelli.weir@cantonrep.com.
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Three Canton City Council candidates compete for Ward 2 seat
