Neighborhood cleanup

Neighborhood cleanup
WARREN -- N.E.E.D., or North End Environmental Development, will have its second annual neighborhood cleanup from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.
The gathering point will be St. Joseph Church on North Street Northwest. Volunteers should be there by 9 a.m. Gloves and bags are available. Lunch will be at noon.
The cleanup is targeting North Park Avenue, Mahoning Avenue, Hall, North, Packard and Roosevelt.
Roosevelt Elementary and Turner Middle School pupils will help clean up the neighborhood Friday.
School report improves
LORDSTOWN -- The school district might finally be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.
A report released at Wednesday's meeting of the state financial oversight commission says the district will finish the fiscal year more than $131,000 in the black.
The good news -- original projections were the district would show a deficit next June of more than $140,000 -- is primarily the result of increased collections in personal property taxes, according to school officials.
Operating in fiscal emergency since December 2000, the district has worked with the state-appointed commission to improve district finances.
Several staff and faculty positions have been eliminated, others have been combined, and voters passed an emergency levy in November. The report also projects Lordstown schools will finish the 2004 fiscal year with a balance of more than $585,000.
Soccer Youth Night
NILES -- The Niles Boys Red Dragons soccer team will have Youth Night on Sept. 17.
The event is for all pupils who played soccer this spring and summer with the Niles Soccer Youth League. The Red Dragons host the Poland Bulldogs at 7 p.m. at the Niles High School stadium.
Any youth player wearing a team jersey or presenting a coupon from Youth Camp last April will be admitted free when accompanied by a parent.
Skills contests will take place at halftime, with prizes, and a soccer ball autographed by team members will be given away.
The game is also Senior/Parent Night for the Red Dragons, with pregame ceremonies.
Accused of theft
WARREN -- The former chief financial officer at Kirila Contractors of Brookfield has been arrested on theft charges.
Trumbull County Sheriff Thomas Altiere said Robert P. Mild of Stewart-Sharon Road, Brookfield, is accused of embezzling more than $650,000.
Mild worked there for about 10 years, the sheriff said.
He was to be arraigned today in common pleas court.
Sidewalk office hours
WARREN -- Third Ward Councilman John Homlitas will have sidewalk office hours starting at 9 a.m. Saturday at Montclair Avenue and Garfield Drive.
Public indecency charge
NILES -- Police have arrested a 13-year-old boy who they say exposed himself to a teenage girl.
The girl's father told police the boy was in the yard of a Mason Street home when he exposed himself to the girl at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The boy is charged with public indecency.
Cash, pills taken
NILES -- A Holford Street man told police someone entered his home and took cash and pills.
Reports say the man was gone between 2:30 and 7:15 p.m. Wednesday when someone forced open the rear door and entered.
The man said $1,100 was missing from his bedroom, as well as several prescription pills.
Guilty plea in sex case
YOUNGSTOWN -- A 20-year-old man faces one to five years in jail after pleading guilty in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday to having sexual contact with his underage girlfriend.
Jacob M. Burkholder, Moore Street, Struthers, pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact with a minor, a third-degree felony, said assistant prosecutor Deena Calabrese.
A grand jury indicted Burkholder in August 2000 on allegations of having sexual contact with the girl earlier that month, court records show. He had turned 18 a month earlier. She was 12.
Calabrese said the two were boyfriend and girlfriend, and authorities learned of the relationship from the girl's mother after the woman reported to police that the girl had run away. The couple had saved up a small sum of money and were staying at a hotel, Calabrese said.