Council removes parks position from personnel ordinance, advances street and sewer title changes

A majority of the North Canton City Council voted to amend Ordinance 12-2026 to remove provisions creating a full-time parks development administrator and approved the remainder of the ordinance—retitling superintendent and operation manager positions related to streets and sewer—under suspension of rules.

Staff member Katherine explained that the ordinance originally contained two parts: adding a parks planning and development role and retitling street/water positions. "I wanted to put that word back into it and call it what the original working title was, which is parks planning and development," Katherine said, citing a consultants' memo and a preliminary list of improvement projects drawn from the parks master plan. She described consultants' advice that cities North Canton's size frequently operate with a director-level parks professional to lead strategic planning, partnerships and capital projects.

Council members expressed support for creating a dedicated parks planning role but questioned the timing and the use of the emergency clause, which would let the position take immediate effect upon passage so the city could begin recruiting. One council member noted prior expenditures on planning work—"in 2025, we invested $123,000 in a parks master plan"—and urged ensuring staff capacity to execute the plan before creating the new position.

To address those concerns, councilors moved to separate the staffing changes into two actions: allow staff to promptly retitle and pay the street and sewer positions via the amended Ordinance 12-2026, and handle the parks planning position in a separate ordinance to allow additional review. The motion to amend Ordinance 12-2026 to remove the parks position passed; the council then adopted the first reading of the ordinance as amended and, by subsequent motions, suspended the rules and adopted it under suspension.

Council later introduced Ordinance 13-2026 to add a full-time parks planning and development administrator with an emergency clause; the first reading was carried on a subsequent vote, sending it forward for further consideration and recruitment. City officials said the emergency clause is intended to allow immediate posting and to shorten the timeline to hire a qualified candidate, but several members emphasized they wanted more time to review the job description and the master plan materials before final approval.

The council did not provide formal vote tallies in the posted transcript; multiple members voiced opposition during roll calls on suspensions of rules, but each motion as recorded in the transcript carried.