Program shows Youngstown's bad side

The program relied heavily on file crime scene and courtroom footage.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
Organized crime may be down in Youngstown, but it's not out, Mahoning County Prosecutor Paul Gains said on an Arts and Entertainment TV network program that premiered Wednesday.
"They're exposed. They haven't gone away. They're like weeds," Gains said of the mobsters on the program, "Mob Hits and Misses in Youngstown," which aired as part of the network's "City Confidential'' series.
The one-hour show dwelled heavily on the past and presented a generally negative view of the city. It chronicled the city's history as a once-thriving iron and steel center, followed by the major steel mill closings and massive job losses of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
What was covered: It also chronicled the violent history of organized crime in the Mahoning Valley, including the slayings of mobsters Joey Naples and Ernie Biondillo and the botched mob-orchestrated Dec. 24, 1996, attempted assassination of Gains just days before he took office.
The program explained how a late-night phone call to Gains from an ex-girlfriend of one of the conspirators in the assassination attempt led to the prosecution of those responsible.
One defendant after another cooperated with authorities and testified against co-conspirators, resulting in about 70 corruption-related convictions, including those of mob boss Lenny Strollo and numerous public officials.
Although the program had an artfully written script, the program's narrator delivered commentary that was sometimes sarcastic, oversimplified and inaccurate.
The show qualified more as documentary theater than anything else, taking advantage of readily available crime scene and courtroom file footage.
Gains' comments: Gains said the show was an accurate portrayal of what happened in Mahoning County.
"I don't think it was negative, which I liked," he said. "I was pleased with it. Everyone who was interviewed used the past tense a lot, which I found interesting. Let's get over the past. The message was we're looking to tomorrow."
Gains said watching the re-enactment of his shooting was a "surreal experience."
People interviewed: During its weeklong visit here in May, the crew videotaped interviews with a cross-section of community leaders, including Gains; political consultant Vic Rubenstein, who ran Gains' successful 1996 campaign for prosecutor; Randall Wellington, sheriff and former city police chief; former Mayor Patrick Ungaro; local businessmen; and experts from Youngstown State University.
Although Youngstown's leaders made both positive and negative comments on camera, the city's image suffered more from the program's narration and editing than from the statements of community leaders.
The tone of the program became obvious at the outset, when the narrator said Youngstown was "once a mighty industrial giant whose steel mills produced the very foundations America was built on, now the dented-up discarded buckle of the 'Rust Belt.'"
Ungaro commented that he was never threatened by the mob, but that there was a time, while he was mayor, when he made sure he turned on the ignition in his car before his children entered for their ride to school.
The program made no mention of the city's economic development efforts or reductions in homicide and other crime rates in the city in recent years.