BOARDMAN — The township has seen some turnover in government this year, and more may be on the horizon.

Two of three seats on Boardman’s board of township trustees are up for grabs in November’s election, and two residents have declared their candidacy.

Attorney Matt Gambrel and Amazon area manager Cody McCormick filed petitions with the Mahoning County Board of Elections this week to run for the seats in an election that will be decided by the top two vote winners.

The seats they seek are held now by long-time trustee Tom Costello — elected in 2009 and also served from 1999-2005 — and Steve Yacovone. Yacovone was named to the board in March by Costello and fellow trustee Larry Moliterno after then-trustee Brad Calhoun gave up the seat to fill the fiscal officer spot vacated by the retiring William D. Leicht. Calhoun also will have to be elected to his position in November, but so far no one has filed to challenge him for it.

Gambrel and McCormick both say it is time for change in Boardman.

“I feel like we have weak leadership. Our mall is dying, businesses are leaving the plazas,

I want to recruit businesses back so we can expand our tax revenue,” McCormick said. “What these guys are doing right now, they’re deciding to coast. And by coasting, I mean they just want to resort to another levy.”

Gambrel said he thinks it’s time for a new voice in township government.

“I’ve been here my whole life, I absolutely love this place and that’s why I’m doing it. I want to see it get better,” he said. “I think our current group has taken us as far as they’re going to.”

He said he knows the job is not easy.

“I don’t think I’m gonna wave a magic wand and fix everything. If there were an easy fix, they’d have done it by now,” Gambrel said. “What I bring is a new perspective in looking at old problems.”

McCormick said he knows the township has many issues to deal with, including fire and emergency medical service plus flooding problems. But he said his primary focus is rebuilding the township’s economy.

“I want businesses to look at Boardman as profitable for their companies,” he said. “Expand the tax base, not the tax burden. We need less meetings and more ribbon cuttings. We need to cut red tape.”

McCormick said he wants to see Boardman become more like Beachwood (near Cleveland) or Cranberry, Pennsylvania. He proposes assembling pitch packages to present to prospective business investors, with incentive menus, zoning adjustments and tax abatements and making better use of tools like the Community Reinvestment Act.

He also suggests revising the township’s zoning code, which he says is antiquated, to include a device known as form-based overlay for mixed use.

“I want us to get that across the major arteries, like Market Street, South Avenue, Southern Boulevard to make things extremely attractive for investors and builders,” he said.

Gambrel said he supports the idea of economic growth and respects McCormick’s suggestions.

“I like his energy, I like where he’s coming from,” Gambrel said. “Certainly, I think any practical changes to zoning are fine as long as safety and water table are not affected.”

But Gambrel said he is unsure how McCormick proposes to grow the tax base. As a township, Boardman cannot collect either sales tax or income tax. All township revenues are derived from property taxes or outside funding like the $45 million dollar FEMA grant the township received in October to try to solve Boardman’s decades-long flooding woes.

Gambrel said that problem is one of his primary areas of focus.

“I want to do whatever we can to promote businesses, but there’s also only so much a township can do, because a lot of that has to do with the county and the state,” he said.

As an alternate on the township’s zoning board of appeals, he is familiar with the processes and even some potential changes that could be made to the zoning ordinances. But Gambrel said one question is constantly asked about any matter that comes before the board:

“How is this going to affect the flood plain? These issues still need to be addressed,” he said.

Gambrel said the residents also need more clarity about how the township is handling fire and ambulance service concerns.

“They’ve pared back services a bit and signed a very large contract,” he said. “Are these the only options we have? And why is that? Those are things I’d want to know. There needs to be more information available to the public.”