By DAVID SKOLNICK

Staff writer

YOUNGSTOWN — A debate among the three candidates for Youngstown Municipal Court judge got somewhat heated over residency and political affiliation.

Martin Hume said during Tuesday’s debate, sponsored by the Youngstown Press Club, that he is a proud Democrat while “both of my opponents have gone back and forth from time to time.”

Hume was referring to Judge Renee M. DiSalvo and Mark A. Hanni.

DiSalvo said the race is nonpartisan and “anyone who uses a political party by their name is a red flag. We don’t want someone with a political agenda on the bench.”

While judges run without party affiliation in general elections, they run as partisans in primaries. Hume won the Democratic primary in May while

DiSalvo was unopposed in the Republican primary. Hanni filed as an independent.

DiSalvo voted Republican for the first time in the May 2018 primary, which was about three months before she applied for the appointment to the vacant seat. She was appointed Oct. 23, 2018, by then-Gov. John Kasich, a Republican. Before then, she voted in Democratic primaries dating back to 1995.

Hanni has voted in Democratic and Republican primaries until 2016 and hasn’t voted in a partisan primary since.

Hanni lost the November 2017 election as an independent candidate for municipal court judge. He sought Kasich’s appointment last year when Elizabeth A. Kobly retired as a municipal court judge. Kasich chose DiSalvo. He also sought the appointment earlier this year to a Mahoning County Court judicial seatbut wasn’t selected.

Hume also said he was the only candidate who lived in Youngstown when Kobly announced her resignation July 31, 2018. Hume changed his voter registration to Youngstown on Sept. 26, 2016, after living in Liberty for about 12 years. He was born and raised in Youngstown.

“I’m the one person committed to Youngstown,” he said.

DiSalvo changed her voter registration from Poland about three weeks after Kobly announced her resignation.

But she said she was born and raised in Youngstown and always planned to move back to the city. She did that shortly after getting married.

DiSalvo said she’s proven herself as a judge.

“If you don’t vote for me, you don’t know what you’re going to get,” she said.

Hanni lived in Youngstown from 2010 until changing his voter registration on Aug. 17, 2018, to Boardman. He changed his voter registration address to Youngstown on April 12, a few weeks before the May 6 deadline for independents to file for this seat.

Hanni said, “Our family’s been in Youngstown for decades.”

Hanni said if elected, he would be tough on crime.

“In the juvenile court, you rehabilitate,” he said. “In the adult court, you punish.”

Throughout the debate, Hanni said that those who commit crimes with a victim should be in jail.

“Sometimes you have to put people in jail for their own good,” he said.

DiSalvo said the “day of punishment for crimes that are nonviolent” and ones in which people can be rehabilitated “are gone.”

dskolnick@tribtoday.com