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Canton Council is to Vote Tonight on an Income Tax Hike

Ideastream Public Media | By M.L. Schultze,
M.L. Schultze
Published February 5, 2018 at 5:15 AM EST
Canton Mayor Tom Bernabei says 60 percent of money will go toward five core areas: around Mercy and Aultman hospitals, around the Timken Co., downtown and in the corridor leading to the Hall of Fame.
TIM RUDELL
/
WKSU
Canton Mayor Tom Bernabei says 60 percent of money will go toward five core areas: around Mercy and Aultman hospitals, around the Timken Co., downtown and in the corridor leading to the Hall of Fame.
Canton Mayor Tom Bernabei says 60 percent of money will go toward five core areas: around Mercy and Aultman hospitals, around the Timken Co., downtown and in the corridor leading to the Hall of Fame.
Credit TIM RUDELL / WKSU
/
WKSU
Canton Mayor Tom Bernabei says 60 percent of money will go toward five core areas: around Mercy and Aultman hospitals, around the Timken Co., downtown and in the corridor leading to the Hall of Fame.

Canton City Council is expected to decide tonight  whether to go to voters in May to hike the city’s income tax by half a percent. 

Sixty percent of the $11.5 million the tax is expected to raise would be devoted to economic development in the five core areas identified in the city’s comprehensive plan two years ago. Mayor Tom Bernabei says that includes near northwest neighborhoods leading from downtown to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“Not focusing money on the Hall of Fame. They’re quite capable of funding their own needs. But what we want to do is focus – where development calls for it – the connectivity to the hall of fame so that the tourists have an easy way, an attractive way, to get downtown, and that we have things in downtown for tourists to do.

The rest of the money would go to police, fire, roads and neighborhood development primarily on the east side.

If voters OK the issue, Canton’s income tax would climb to 2.5 percent, the same as Akron and Cleveland.

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M.L. Schultze
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M.L. Schultze
M.L. Schultze came to WKSU as news director in July 2007 after 25 years at The Repository in Canton, where she was managing editor for nearly a decade. She’s now the digital editor and an award-winning reporter and analyst who has appeared on NPR, Here and Now and the TakeAway, as well as being a regular panelist on Ideas, the WVIZ public television's reporter roundtable.