City Council Votes Down Pay-Cut Petition, 4-3

A aimed at reducing the pay of Stow’s government officials was voted down 4-3 by the City Council at their regular meeting on Thursday night.

If the petition had been approved, it would have allowed voters to decide in November on whether or not to reduce the salary of each council member by $6.500.

According to law director Brian Reali , the initiative’s organizers – 2011 city council candidates Brian Lowdermilk and Bob Adaska – left out necessary language in the preamble of the petition that included how the process of reducing salaries to the law director, finance director and mayor would be changed.

The petition also did not get the adequate number of signatures, council president Janet D’Antonio said. 

The voting population of Stow is about 9,700 people, and according to the council’s charter, 10 percent of the city’s residents, or 967 voters, needed to sign it. Adaska and Loudermilk only collected 888 signatures, she said. 

In a prepared statement following the meeting, At-large councilman Mike Rasor, who voted for the petition to go on the ballot said, “this was only a pretext for the good ole boy network to do what they’ve been doing for two years: protect their precious salaries.”

In other news, the council unanimously voted down a developer’s plan to park a at the Villas of Stonebridge Crossing off Fishcreek road. 

Roger Puzzitiello, president of Parkview Custom Homes, requested a conditional zoning certificate to park the custom-painted RV, which advertises his company, along Danforth Reserve Drive. 

The RV would have also acted as a rolling sales office for folks who were interested in purchasing a home within the development. 

After receiving several complaints from homeowners in the development, the council collectively agreed that it was not in the city’s best interest, and that granting the zoning permit would have set the wrong precedent for others who might have wanted to mimic Puzzitiello’s plan.