Documenters: Rootstown Township Trustees meeting for Feb. 24, 2026 - Marissa Devantier. Palmer requested approval to transition two part-time firefighters to full-time status, effective April 1. While the fiscal officer noted that the midyear budget did not initially account for the additional salaries, approximately $500,000 in carryover funds made the hires feasible.
- Wendy DiAlesandro. A Portage County corrections officer faces two felony charges of sexual extortion, but the sheriff’s office isn’t naming names.
- Shirley Mars. For over 45 years, the spirit of neighborliness has been alive and well in our community, as residents wholeheartedly lent support to the Brimfield Community Cupboard and created a legacy of caring for our own.
- Roger Gordon. Aurora City Council had resolutions of appreciation for firefighter/paramedics Michael Upholz and Michael Gelardi. They recently saved the life of a woman who was in the passenger seat of a car that had just arrived at the Hillcrest Hospital emergency room parking lot.
- Staff Report. Remembering those we've lost in Portage County
- Savana Capp. Ravenna City Schools announced the plan for housing the district's students next school year following the closure of West Main Elementary. Ravenna City Schools will have its K-12 students in three buildings next year: K-2 at Willyard Elementary, 3-6 at Brown Middle School and 7-12 at Ravenna High School.
- Margaret Lennox. Copen Machine, a manufacturing company in Kent, is planning to acquire three parcels of land located on 200 W. Williams St.
- Kathy Baker. My words to you this month were inspired by the following quote, written in the fourteenth century by the great Persian poet and mystic, Hafez: “The small man builds cages for everyone he knows. While the sage, who has to duck her head when the moon is low, keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful, rowdy prisoners.”
- Staff Report. Remembering those we've lost in Portage County
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- Ben Wolford. At least once a week and sometimes more often than that I receive an email or a call from a reader telling me they need to update their credit card because it was stolen or hacked.
- Adriana Gasiewski. While attending the 2025 Heritage Ohio Annual Conference, Lesley Sickle, marketing coordinator of Main Street Kent, learned how in Delaware, Ohio, they displayed students’ artwork at local businesses for an entire month and started thinking about how Kent could pull off something similar.
- Wendy DiAlesandro. Brimfield’s newest trustee has a sharp eye for dollar signs. During the township’s Feb. 2 trustee meeting, Kevin Scott mentioned that the township is needlessly paying tens of thousands of dollars in annual property taxes.
- Op-Ed Contributor. Talking about poverty is not easy. Not because it is unimportant — not when tens of millions of Americans live in poverty’s vice grip. Talking about it makes us uncomfortable because it forces us to confront hard questions about fairness, responsibility, and whether the systems we have built are working.
- Staff Report. Remembering those we've lost in Portage County
