AUSTINTOWN — The township’s police department said it is taking residents’ springtime complaints seriously.

At Monday’s regular meeting of the Austintown trustees — which took place at the Austintown Senior Center to accommodate the election machines set up at township hall — police Chief Valorie Delmont and Zoning Inspector Dominic Moltchan said they know it’s the season for speeding and high grass and are keeping up with it was well as they can.

“With spring, that’s always a time when traffic complaints increase, because that’s when more people are out on the roads, people are driving faster, a little bit more reckless, because the weather’s nice, people’s windows are down, and we are trying to address it,” Delmont said.

She said the department is aware of many complaints, and streets like Norquest Drive, Ohltown Road, Herons Circle, Winter Park Avenue, Woodgate Street and Inwood Drive, are at the top of the township’s priority list right now.

Eugene Conners of Norquest spoke at the meeting and said two motorcycle speedsters driving yellow and black “crotch rockets” are antagonizing his neighborhood. Harvey Crowley, a road department employee, said he is also familiar with them, because they race up and down past his house on Ohltown Road.

Delmont said it is important for residents to let the department know where problems are happening so her officers can respond and the department can use devices to track speed issues.

“The devices don’t work very well in cold weather, so now that it’s warming up, we have both our traffic devices out,” she said. “One has the flashing lights on it to try to slow people down, the other is a device that collects data on the traffic, average speeds, high speed, low speed. So we do have that on Norquest so we can try to gather some of that info. Ohltown is one of the next streets on the list. We do try to keep the trailer in place long enough that we get good results.”

But Delmont said that means they cannot get the trailers to every road as soon as they are requested.

“If you don’t see it moving to your location soon, it’s because there’s a lot of requests pending,” she said.

Those aren’t the only restrictions with which the township is dealing.

“We have a limited number of resources. We have our three new officers that we hired, they are all still in training, we have not increased our numbers yet, and we are still at bare minimum because those officers are still riding with their training officers,” Delmont said. “Hopefully by July, they’ll be on their own.”

She said the patrol officers on duty are aware of problem areas and have orders to attend to them.

“At roll call, we blast out all the streets we’ve gotten complaints on, and we try to keep the officers aware of where those complaints are, so they are hitting those streets,” she said. “If they have time in between calls, we request that they sit on those streets. Please keep us informed where you’re seeing violations. We are enforcing the traffic laws and doing everything we can to address those concerns.”

Trustee Robert Santos said the board has approved limited overtime “within very much reason and at (Delmont’s) discretion to apply pressure in the high traffic areas where police know there are speeding problems.

The township and department are still keeping a tight purse and a close eye on finances, even after voters approved the 2.22-mill levy in November to generate about $2 million for the department. That money will not actually be available to the department until next year.

According to statistics provided by Fiscal Officer Laurie Wolfe, so far in 2026 the police department has received about $2.9 million of its expected $7.44 million operating revenue for the year, including a $650,000 advance from the general fund. That is about 31% and at this point in the year all departments should be at about 33% of their revenue and spending. The department has spent about $2.19 million of its estimated $7.09 in annual expenses, which is also 31%.

With spring also comes high grass complaints and Moltchan said his office is well aware of it. Moltchan asked trustees to approve a list of more than 80 nuisance properties with high grass on Monday and said the zoning office has identified more than 200 in the past month.

Moltchan said the township has to go through the statutory nuisance declaration process every single time for each individual property for which a complaint is received.

Moltchan said they cannot just put a property on a list and cut it regularly.

Once the complaint comes in, and the township verifies it, then zoning must send the property owner a warning letter, giving them 14 days to remedy the problem. If the grass isn’t cut after that, zoning sends it to the roads department to schedule it for cutting.

Then the process starts all over. Moltchans suggests calling his office when a problem property’s grass reaches 6-8 inches high.