North Canton Serves Citizens an Extra Layer of Protection at City’s Civic Center

The Opportunity

The North Canton (Ohio) Civic Center is a multipurpose building that sits at the heart of a community 17,488 residents call home. It provides a place for the city council and zoning commission to meet, but it also has been the site of weddings and other events that mark significant milestones in the ebb and flow of life in the area.

One of its most critical functions, however, is as a polling place during elections. With more than 2,000 people scheduled to use the site as a polling place during the 2020 election in the midst of a global pandemic, the city knew it had to come up with a plan to reduce bacterial spread for the people who needed to use the building.

“We knew our citizens were taking the pandemic seriously, but as they gathered together to fulfill their civic duty, we wanted to offer them another layer of protection,” said Patrick De Orio, Director of Administration for North Canton. “We started exploring what methods were available to support the other efforts the city was undertaking, including mask mandates, social distancing and hand-washing.”

When De Orio heard about the possibility of using UVC disinfection lighting technology from Current to inactivate viruses in the air, he knew he’d found another way to safeguard his citizens.

The Solution

When used as directed, Current’s LPU devices—featuring 365DisInFx™ UVC technology—provide 99% inactivation with fewer than six hours of exposure for seasonal coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that is known to cause COVID-19 (results based on testing using a bacteriophage MS2 model).

By installing multiple units within the Civic Center, De Orio felt he could cover the large area where the voting would take place with the disinfection power of these devices without disrupting the critical functions going on there.

“It looks like a smoke detector,” De Orio said. “That’s the beauty of the product. It allows you to incorporate it easily into the ceiling while still allowing for its full functionality.”

Why Current

North Canton decided to partner with Current because of its long-standing reputation for excellence and customer support. De Orio knew that he could count on the company to stand behind its products for years to come and offer the city its expertise if it decided to expand the program beyond the Civic Center.

“We were looking for a partner we could count on for the long haul,” De Orio said. “We’re looking to expand our use of their disinfection lights to other public buildings as well, and we wanted to know we could count on the manufacturer to be there when we needed them.”

“It looks like a smoke detector ... That’s the beauty of the product. It allows you to incorporate it easily into the ceiling while still allowing for its full functionality.”

- Patrick De Orio, Director of Administration, North Canton

The Results

De Orio believes the installation of the devices alleviated concerns citizens may have had about casting ballots in person and led to the smooth running of the election. While many events that had been scheduled for the Civic Center last year were canceled because of the pandemic, the installation of these devices, along with increased vaccination rates, has returned the building back to the center of life for the city.

“People are starting to schedule events at the building again, and we’re happy to have them use it, especially now that we have these safety measures in place,” De Orio says. “Most importantly, Current has provided us a safe, unobtrusive way to provide ongoing and continuous protection for the people in the building.”