Court of Appeals belongs in downtown Youngstown

As Mahoning County commissioners try to figure out what to do about the 7th District Court of Appeals, they should remember the words of former governor and now U.S. Sen. George V. Voinovich: "Government belongs downtown."
It is noteworthy that Voinovich's comment was made in the context of another project involving Youngstown's central business district, namely, the proposal by the Youngstown Central Area Community Improvement Corp. to construct an office building to house state agencies and offices scattered around Mahoning County.
During his 1990 campaign for governor, Voino vich had pledged to explore the possibility of relocating the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles from Columbus to downtown Youngstown. However, opposition from the unions and the refusal of the legislature to amend state law to permit the relocation forced him to take another approach.
Thus was born the consolidation project. Armed with commitments from state agencies to lease space in the new office building, the YCACIC proceeded with the construction. Today, the George V. Voinovich Government Center on Federal Plaza West represents the culmination of years of hard work on the part of many individuals, both in Columbus and in the Mahoning Valley, to ensure the viability of downtown Youngstown.
Reminder: The center should serve as a reminder to county commissioners Edward Reese, Vicki Allen Sherlock and David Ludt that while the suburbs, by virtue of growing residential populations, have become retail centers, downtowns remain the natural location for government.
Reese, Sherlock and Ludt need only consider the decision by the federal government to build not one but two courthouses in Youngstown.
Thus, while the plans to move the 7th District Court of Appeals into the Mahoning County Administration Building, located behind the county courthouse, have fallen through, we believe the commissioners have an obligation to find the court adequate space in the central business district. They should ignore any talk about moving the appeals court out of the city or even to one of the other counties in the eight-county judicial district.
Mahoning County is the largest of the eight and has historically been the seat of the district.
We are encouraged that the four appeals court judges, Gene Donofrio, Joseph J. Vukovich III, Cheryl Waite and Mary DeGenaro, are committed to keeping the court in downtown Youngstown. That makes the job of finding another home for it a lot easier.
And we wholeheartedly agree with county Administrator Gary Kubic, who has spent countless hours trying to find adequate quarters for the appeals court, when he says that the decision to look outside the city would come only after all downtown options were fully explored.