Lordstown residents hoping to block the TJX/HomeGoods distribution center project in their community have submitted enough signatures to force a vote on the issue in a special election.
Over 1,100 signatures on seven petitions were turned in to the Trumbull County Board of Elections. Elections director Stephanie Penrose says 868 of those needed to be ruled valid to get the anti-TJX measure on the ballot.
“We have just gotten finished checking the signatures and they meet the signature requirement," she says. "And then we turn them back over to the village, who determines the validity of the petitions themselves.”
That is ‘validity’ in terms of wording and technical legal requirements for the documents.
Penrose says there’s going to be a short turnaround to the special election, as absentee voting for this starts Tuesday. The election is set for August 21.
If the ballot measure passes, the effect will be to reverse zoning changes made earlier this year to allow the distribution warehouse and shipping dock to be built in an area that had been zoned residential.
If the measure fails, TJX is expected to go forward with the project that it says will bring a thousand new permanent jobs to Lordstown.
