WARREN Trumbull EMA considers moving offices to airport

Port authority members have not been contacted yet.
By PEGGY SINKOVICH
and STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN --The Trumbull County Emergency Management Agency is one step closer to landing a home at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.
EMA officials met with commissioners Thursday afternoon to discuss moving into vacant space at the airport. "It would meet our needs," said Linda Beil, EMA director.
She noted that Tom Nolan, airport director, who has recently resigned to take another post out of state, told her the agency could use the space and would not be required to pay rent.
"The price is right," said Commissioner Joseph Angelo.
Port authority
Commissioner Michael O'Brien, who agreed the airport would be an ideal place for the agency, noted that the port authority, which oversees airport operations, would have to make the final decision.
Port authority members have not yet been contacted, Beil said.
Beil and Clyde McKenzie, chief of the county HazMat team, said they did not want to talk to the port authority board without first informing commissioners of the plan.
"We wanted to come to you first," McKenzie said. "We plan to go to the port authority next."
Port authority officials could not be reached.
The EMA was forced to leave its quarters in the county health department on Chestnut Avenue in May after poisonous mold was discovered growing behind drywall.
The basement was subsequently sealed and equipment and files left behind by EMA were removed and cleaned at a cost of $11,500.
The three-member EMA is operating out of a small office in the county 911 center, the former Hillside Hospital tuberculosis ward.
Radio equipment, which would allow officials to communicate with officers in the field and the state Emergency Management Agency, is being stored in old hospital rooms.
"They cannot stay in the present location," said Melissa Long, Cortland mayor and an EMA board member. "It is inadequate. There is not enough room. They need to move."
The airport is big enough to accommodate the EMA, which needs a large room to use as a command center in case of a large-scale emergency.
A command center is a place with telephone lines, radio equipment, flip charts and maps that would permit officials to coordinate a multiagency disaster response.
"The airport also provides a space for the media," McKenzie said.
Angelo's only concern, he said, was that a terrorist could attack the airport.
"If we are housed at the county building we could be attacked too," Beil said.
sinkovich@vindy.comsiff@vindy.com