Issues & Progress
Keep Canton Moving One Block at a Time
Over the past term, Mayor Sherer has focused City government on the issues that matter most to Canton families: Safer neighborhoods, better roads and water lines, stronger schools, more housing, and a City that works for the people who live here, not just the industries around them. Explore what’s been accomplished on each issue below, and what’s still ahead.
Public Safety
A safer Canton makes a safer Stark County. Mayor Sherer is turning the former AEP building into a new multijurisdictional Safety Center, giving Canton’s police, fire, and safety partners the ability to work side by side with state and federal agencies to keep our community secure. It’s part of a broader push to strengthen the force: new equipment, new facilities, and closer coordination across every level of law enforcement.
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The new Safety Center will bring together local, state, and federal safety partners under one roof, improving coordination and response across jurisdictions. Alongside it, capital funding has been secured specifically for safety projects. The City has also pursued grants to outfit officers with body cameras, vests, and drones. These investments are helping Canton’s safety forces respond more quickly when residents need them most.
That commitment extends to the City’s physical footprint, too. A new fire station is planned for Harmont Avenue, along with a new police substation, and the City continues to replace aging fire engines and ambulances so crews have reliable equipment on every call. Mayor Sherer has pursued this work on a bipartisan basis, working across party lines to get safety funding across the finish line.
Infrastructure
Mayor Sherer is rebuilding Canton’s neighborhoods one block at a time. He created the Mayor’s Neighborhood Commission and amended the City’s capital improvement plan to target specific neighborhoods in all four quadrants of Canton, shifting the focus from big institutions to the blocks where Canton families actually live. The result: at least two neighborhoods getting dedicated investment every single year, alongside a citywide push to replace a century’s worth of aging water lines.
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Mayor Sherer ran on a plan to shift the City’s investment toward the neighborhoods where people live, not just institutions like the Hall of Fame and Aultman. Then he delivered. In 2025, that commitment became official policy with the Connecting Canton Together Comprehensive Plan Amendment, which redirected the City’s comprehensive plan funding to neighborhood development. The plan has already reached 16 neighborhoods across all four quadrants. It started in Vassar Park and has since moved into the Elgin neighborhood near the McKinley Monument and Harrisburg-Royal off 19th Street. The City is also replacing 7–8 miles of water line every year, tackling infrastructure that in some places is more than 100 years old.
That investment reaches every corner of the City. Some say Southeast Canton gets overlooked, but it has seen real, visible investment under Mayor Sherer: new raised crosswalks and four new Habitat for Humanity homes off 3rd Street Southwest. Elsewhere, major paving projects are underway, including the repaving of West Tuscarawas in front of Aultman Hospital.
Mayor Sherer has also nearly doubled the City’s annual paving investment compared to most prior years. Today, Canton is paving roughly 11 times more than it did in 2008, when road paving funding had all but disappeared.
Recent Infrastructure Wins:
- Water main replacement across the Gross Avenue NE, West Manor, Mount Vernon, and Croydon-Brookpark areas, backed by more than $2.7 million in Ohio Public Works Commission (OPWC) grants.
- A new roundabout at Fulton Drive, 25th Street, and Harrison Avenue, funded through a $5.85 million SCATS grant.
- The West Tuscarawas Corridor Safety Project, now backed by more than $12.5 million in combined state and federal funding.
- Streetscape improvements on East Tuscarawas and Cleveland Avenues, funded through more than $2.5 million in congressionally directed spending.
- A new Safe Routes to School project at Glenwood Intermediate, funded through a $775,425 federal grant.
- More than $20 million secured in prior years for projects including 11th Street SE, Colonial Boulevard, Cleveland Avenue North, and water main work in Perry Heights and Harter Heights.
All told, Mayor Sherer’s administration has secured more than $39 million in outside infrastructure funding in recent years—with more grant applications in the pipeline and additional wins expected before November.
Education
Not every student is headed to college or the military, and Mayor Sherer believes Canton should have a real plan for the ones who aren’t. Through the McKinley CTE Collaboration, the City is partnering directly with Canton City Schools to give career-tech students hands-on experience in City departments, and it’s already turning into real jobs.
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Over the past two years, the City has hosted tours of multiple departments for McKinley High School’s Career and Technical Education classes, giving students a first-hand look at career paths within city government—from the street department to the police department to building maintenance. Those tours have already led to real hires: seasonal, pre-apprenticeship-style roles for senior students, first in the Department of Motor Vehicles and now in the Building Maintenance Department as well.
The short-term goal is threefold: open these opportunities up to juniors, not just seniors; grow the number of local students the City hires each year; and expand the number of City departments able to bring students on. The long-term goal is bigger still: Building a lasting workforce pipeline between Canton City Schools and the City itself, so more of the students who grow up here are able to build their careers here, too.
Housing
Canton is launching its biggest housing push in 50 years. Mayor Sherer is tackling blight head-on by acquiring tax-delinquent properties, clearing the way for new construction, and partnering with school districts, developers, and nonprofits to get new homes built where Canton families need them most. Because you can’t talk about growing Canton’s economy without talking about where its people are going to live.
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In partnership with Canton City Schools, the City completed a land swap that traded the former Munson Stadium site for the Baxter and Washington Elementary properties. The Baxter site is already slated for the development of 16 new single-family homes in partnership with Habitat for Humanity… New construction on sites that had sat unused, in neighborhoods that need more housing stock, not less.
A second, larger land swap is already underway. Canton City Schools will transfer the Fairmont, Shriver, Compton, and Deuber school buildings, along with the former Risaliti practice football field, to the City. In exchange, the City will give the district the 17th Street property in front of McKinley High School. The City will demolish the aging school buildings on its new sites and build housing in their place, turning underused school property into new homes for Canton families.
Economic Development
From day one, Mayor Sherer has taken a strong position on growing Canton’s economy: attracting new businesses to the City, retaining the longstanding Canton companies that are already here, and building the public-private partnerships needed to get major projects across the finish line.
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Mayor Sherer has made economic development a day-one priority, leveraging the City’s resources and relationships to bring new businesses to Canton while working just as hard to keep longstanding Canton employers right where they are. He sees public-private partnerships as essential to that work—bringing City government, private developers, and local businesses to the table together to move projects forward that neither side could tackle alone.
That same partnership-first approach is already paying off in the City’s housing and infrastructure work, from land swaps with Canton City Schools to developer-backed housing projects across the City. Growing Canton’s economy and taking care of the people who live here go hand in hand.
Fiscal Responsibility
Mayor Sherer has kept Canton’s finances on solid ground: passing a balanced budget every year in office, spending taxpayer dollars carefully, and working aggressively to bring in every state and federal funding dollar available so big projects don’t have to come out of residents’ pockets.
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Balancing the City’s budget every year hasn’t stopped Mayor Sherer from getting big things done. He’s paired that fiscal discipline with an aggressive push to secure outside funding wherever it’s available. His administration has pursued grants from the Ohio Public Works Commission, the Stark County Area Transportation Study, and Canton’s congressional delegation, among others. That outside money has paid for road and water projects as well as new equipment and technology for Canton’s safety forces, including body cameras, protective vests, and drones for the police department. All of it came without asking residents to foot the bill through higher taxes.
That approach has already paid off. Since 2024 alone, the City has secured more than $39 million in outside infrastructure funding (see the Infrastructure section above for the full breakdown), with new grant applications in the pipeline and more wins expected before November.
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Keep William V. Sherer II as Mayor of Canton
Keep the momentum going. Keep Canton moving forward. Keep William V. Sherer II as Mayor.