What a riot! Unusual use for old buildings

Members of the CIC were concerned that floors could collapse during the assault team's training exercises.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Kyle A. Nurminen wasn't sure how to broach what he thought would be a touchy subject.
He prepared a whole sales pitch. After all, the Ohio State Penitentiary lieutenant was asking the city's downtown agency to let the supermax prison Special Response Team run roughshod through some of its abandoned buildings.
Nurminen didn't hear what he expected.
The agency's response: Have at it.
"We finally found somebody who can use our buildings," joked Greg Strollo, a member of the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp.'s property committee.
After years of dealing with the poor condition of its buildings, CIC members can laugh about it, and they did Tuesday.
The training, however, isn't funny.
What they do: SRTs handle disturbances such as escapes, riots and hostage situations.
SRTs need different, unfamiliar places to train because that often is the spot members find themselves in, Nurminen said. Teams are sent to other prisons where they don't know the buildings or landscape, he said. Such teams must search out fugitives, whether it's on a field, or in a home or an abandoned building.
In exchange, Nurminen said the East Side prison will offer the city any help it needs.
The SRT will try to leave the downtown buildings mostly undisturbed, Nurminen said. With permission, however, the team would like to break down doors and shoot with paint pellets in buildings where that won't be a problem. Training weapons aren't loaded with real ammunition, he said.
Jokes: Committee members joked about how SRT training could reduce eventual demolition costs for a few too-far-gone buildings.
But CIC members had serious concerns about safety, such as SRT members falling though floors or ceilings collapsing on them.
SRT members will waive all liability. As the training officer, Nurminen said he would scout locations for safety before running any training drills.
The CIC is having its lawyer review the issue before the teams start using the downtown buildings.
The city board of education turned down the prison's request to use vacant schools because of liability. The school board referred the prison to CIC.
Contract: Property committee members also passed to the full board a staff recommendation to hire ES & amp;C, of Youngstown, to document environmental problems in all two dozen CIC buildings.
The contract would be for $32,185.
Eight companies made proposals, ranging from $18,000 to $66,000. The two highest and two lowest proposals were thrown out because they didn't meet the CIC's request.
ES & amp;C's offer was picked because committee members said it was the most comprehensive, offered to take the most asbestos samples and would do some structural evaluation of the buildings.