Feds won't pay for city hall, convocation center

Feds won't pay for city hall, convocation center
EDITOR:
I read with great interest Bertram de Souza's recent column: "City can have its cake and icing, too." Generally speaking, I certainly agree with Mr. de Souza that the private sector is an appropriate vehicle for the construction and operation of such facilities, including public assembly facilities. However, this is not always the case.
Some privately owned facilities in Ohio have not generated the kind of positive opportunities for the communities that public facilities of public/private partnership in facilities can do.
Mr. de Souza's column gives great credibility and high praise to the Massillon Project. While I certainly hope the Massillon Civic Center/Arena will be a success, it is certainly premature to judge it as such when they have merely broken ground at this phase on the developer's very first owner/operator arena project.
The problem is we just don't know what we need in Youngstown, since we have not yet identified principal tenants. Presumably, we will have a hockey team and an arena football team. We need to identify teams and their owners and involve them in the programming for the new center in Youngstown. If we fail to do so, we will be taking a huge risk that the building we design and build (whether privately or publicly) will not meet the owners' economic expectations, and therefore, we will not get the tenants.
Mr. de Souza also suggests that approximately $20 million, the amount to be spent in Massillon, is enough for a facility in Youngstown. But we do not have an architectural program and do not know the design of our building. Moreover, I sincerely doubt that a solid analysis of the building proposed for Massillon has been done by Mr. de Souza. If it had, I think he would find that the community in Youngstown is expecting a higher quality building than Massillon's.
Finally, and perhaps most important, the suggestion in Mr. de Souza's column, that we can have our cake and icing too -- that we can take the federal money and have two projects instead of just one -- is, I suspect, wishful thinking. Rep. Traficant procured the dollars from the federal government for a convocation/civic center, which everyone knows would include a major arena component.
While there can be many and varied definitions of what a civic center is, certainly no one involved at the time of the congressman's deft actions contemplated building a new city hall. It is total speculation to assume that we could re-program these dollars. That is taking a huge risk. Point in fact, the Congressman talked about the regional aspect and impact of this project, despite its location in the city proper. A city hall has no regional impact whatsoever.
Frankly, I can't think of any good reasons why the federal government would support the construction of a city hall in Youngstown. If they were to do so, this would be a very dangerous precedent. Building the seat of municipal government is a local responsibility, not the federal government's. The Congressman and the Congress expected that the dollars appropriated were going to be used as an economic development project -- a catalyst for rebuilding downtown Youngstown. Certainly, a new city hall would do great things to the architectural fabric and cityscape in downtown Youngstown. But I don't think anyone could argue that just building a new city hall is going to stimulate economic development as an arena would.
I agree with Mr. de Souza's final comment: "It's time to face reality. The city will have to wait a long time for another gift of this size from Washington." Given this agreement by all of us - let's get about developing the convocation center - without it, we have nothing but a dream.
BRUCE J. ZOLDAN
Youngstown
X The writer is president and CEO of B.J. Alan Fireworks Co.
Cal's hate-filled words are divisive and hurtful
EDITOR:
I am writing in response to the articles written by Cal Thomas. I am appalled that such hateful and divisive words are printed in & quot;my & quot; newspaper. It is unbelievable that in a time when even the president is supporting and encouraging & quot;pluralism & quot; or diversity, Thomas can be so biased against Islam, one of the three main religions of the world.
I am an American by birth and Muslim by choice. I wouldn't change either one. I have loving, supportive, Christian parents, siblings, relatives, etc. I have lived in Youngstown most of my life. This past summer I happily traveled with my husband and three children to Syria and Lebanon. We had the time of our lives. We mainly stayed in a former Palestinian refugee camp, now a neighborhood, and were treated with nothing but respect and kindness. Thomas' articles would have us believe that all Palestinians are taught in school to hate Americans. This is not true. I found that all the people I met were very able to distinguish between the American foreign policy and American people. I & quot;look & quot; very American in comparison to those I was with and cannot express the hospitality with which I was treated.
Thomas should remember there are at least 6 million Muslims in the United States. How many created the terrible events of Sept. 11? We are your neighbors, co-workers, PTA members, doctors, teamates and friends. We may be first-generation Americans learning the language (just as every American immigrant once did) or second generation teaching your children the language. We are Americans in this county of freedoms, including freedom of religion and speech.
Instead of reading Thomas I recommend "More in Common Than You Think," by Dr. Bill Baker or Oprah's transcript of Oct. 5, 2001, Islam 101.
Each time I read one of Thomas' articles I cannot believe he believes what he writes. For each verse he misuses to support a statement, I can quote one to disprove it.
I pray that my children at a wonderful school in Canfield will never run into his hate-filled words. My oldest son proudly says the Pledge of Allegience every morning and believes it. I hope we can all join together to prove to Thomas that America is & quot;one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all & quot; -- even Muslims.
HEIDI SALEH
Canfield