PRESENT: Doug Emerine, Bill Templeton and Brian Bugos
Trustees:
⢠Approved Bugos as liaison to the Champion schools to negotiate having a Champion police officer as a school resource officer. Currently, the SRO is from the Trumbull County Sheriff’s Office;
⢠Approved returning a stop sign to the intersection of Nutwood Avenue and Republic Street to slow down traffic;
⢠Sent a letter to owners of Champion Skate to get the debris from the building cleaned up and removed. The rink caught fire in late December 2019 with a cause not yet determined;
⢠Appointed Jennifer Kusmierek to fill the unexpired term of Linda Cain on the zoning board of appeals through December 2023;
Ernie Cook was fired from the position Jan. 21 by Trumbull County commissioners.
He filed a notice that he intends to appeal the firing with the State Personnel Board of Review.
Commissioners were served notice of the appeal.
Because it is an initial filing of the intention to appeal the firing, documents lack specific arguments about Cook’s objection to his firing.
Cook declined to comment further on the points he intends to argue in the appeal process.
Commissioners retained legal counsel Wednesday to handle the appeal. They hired Gallagher Sharp LLP of Cleveland for up to $10,000. They selected outside counsel after reviewing proposals from two different companies, and because the prosecutor’s office has a conflict in handling the case, commissioners said.
PERRY TOWNSHIP An officer assisted the Ohio State Highway Patrol at 7:54 a.m. Tuesday at a traffic accident in the 1900 block of state Route 9. Kayla Burkett, 28, of Salem, was cited for failure to yield after stopping at a stop sign on Snyder Road, pulling out to turn south onto Depot Road and colliding with a northbound vehicle driven by Devan Brown, 32, of Salem, at 7:45 a.m. Tuesday. No injuries were reported. Police were called at 10:52 p.m. Monday to the bypass/interchange where an officer saw a semi parked and spoke to two people delivering cars to a customer and having issues with the truck. The problem was fixed and they were on their way.
Jan 21, 2021
Trumbull County 911 Director Ernest Cook on Thursday was fired by Trumbull County commissioners after an executive session that lasted several hours.
Cook, 69, 7144 Wildwood Drive, Brookfield, last week had pleaded no contest to charges of loss of physical control under the influence, a first-degree misdemeanor, and failure to report a July 2018 accident, a minor misdemeanor. Trumbull County Eastern District Judge Marty Nosich had found Cook guilty and on the first charge, gave him a suspended 180-day jail term; a $1,000 fine of which $500 was suspended; and placed him on a six-month probation. On the second charge, Cook was fined $150 plus $45 in court costs.
Jan 17, 2021
Staff photo / Ed Runyan
Lt. Tom Collins of the Austintown Police Department shows his Motorola body camera, which integrates the camera and the police radio in one device. There is one button to turn on the body camera and one for the radio.
News coverage of the Dec. 22, 2020, fatal shooting of a man walking toward a Columbus police officer while holding a cellphone produced a type of police body-camera video that many people probably didn’t know was possible.
Video from the body camera of officer Adam Coy showing Andre Hill being killed was possible because of a feature on the device called a “look-back.”