WARREN City's health panel is seeking more facts from the state

By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The city's deputy health commissioner plans to write a letter to the state attorney general's office requesting more information about negotiations between state agencies and a city company.
Earlier this month, a representative of the attorney general's office told Robert Pinti, deputy health commissioner, not to send a representative from the city health district to a Nov. 7 meeting.
The meeting among representatives from the AG's office, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and Warren Recycling Inc. was to discuss what the state says are noncompliance issues at the company's Martin Luther King Avenue construction and demolition debris landfill.
A spokeswoman from the AG's office said the agency's issue is with the company. She said after the Nov. 7 meeting that no agreement was reached and that further meetings would be scheduled.
Pinti said at a city health board meeting Wednesday that he asked the AG's office to inform the city of the outcome of the meeting.
"To date, I have not received that," he said. "The licensure issue is coming up and I don't want to be pushed to the 11th hour on the licensing issue."
Health board members also expressed frustration.
'In the dark'
"They're asking us to approve on something we're completely in the dark about," said Lillie Brooks, board member.
Pinti said he believes it's unfair to ask the board to make a decision about the issue without having all of the facts.
Last month, OEPA sent a letter to the health district saying the district should revoke WRI's current landfill operating license because of ongoing noncompliance issues and deny renewal of the 2003 license unless a satisfactory consent agreement is reached by Dec. 31.
Pinti said he was concerned about putting the city in a position to get sued and wanted OEPA to clarify whether it was ordering the health district to revoke the company's license.
After city officials questioned the letter, OEPA sent another letter saying that it agreed it doesn't make sense to revoke the 2002 license with only two months remaining in the year.
OEPA said it had no objection if the board decided to forgo that action but maintained that the health board should propose denial of the 2003 license application if WRI hasn't reached an agreement by the end of the year.
Suggestion
Thomas B.J. Letson, another health board member, suggested Pinti write a letter to the attorney general's office, saying the only information the health district has about the meeting came from the press.
Some of the noncompliance issues the OEPA is concerned about stem from 1998. The company was convicted last year of a misdemeanor count of criminal damaging, accused of accepting wood in 1998 that came from a cabinet manufacturer, not from a construction or demolition site.
OEPA officials have said there are additional noncompliance issues, but they have declined to elaborate.