DOWNTOWN ARENA Effort begins to undo error on funding shift

A spokesman denied that DeWine purposely omitted the language from a bill.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
VINDICATOR POLITICS WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The authority to allow Youngstown to shift the $25 million in federal funding from building a convocation center to general downtown redevelopment was accidentally omitted from a congressional appropriations package.
"It was mistakenly left out of the bill," said Mike Dawson, spokesman for U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, who is taking the lead role in Congress in getting the Youngstown provision approved.
"The senator is committed to getting the language included; it's a priority for him," Dawson said.
Omission
Youngstown Mayor George M. McKelvey said he received a telephone call from DeWine, an Ohio Republican, about the omission.
"He told me a clerk of the subcommittee unintentionally omitted the language from the omnibus spending bill," McKelvey said.
Because the funding shift isn't in the joint House-Senate conference report on the $820 million omnibus spending package, it can't be added on the floor of either legislative body as an amendment, said Mary Anne Walsh, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, who supports the change.
"There's no way to get it into the omnibus report," she said. "It's going to have to be put into something else."
There are several options to get approval from Congress on reprogramming the money, Dawson, Walsh and McKelvey said. It's just going to take longer than originally anticipated to get congressional approval.
The omnibus spending package passed the U.S. House on Monday. It will be discussed by the U.S. Senate today, but a vote is not expected on it until at least Jan. 20, Dawson said.
Options
One option is to get the provision included as part of a technical correction to the omnibus package, said McKelvey, Dawson and Walsh. That is the best and quickest way to get congressional approval of the funding shift, but the technical correction to the omnibus bill won't be considered until February or March, Walsh said.
"There are thousands of mistakes made in a bill this size, and the opportunity to correct that is in the technical correction bill that always follows the omnibus bill," McKelvey said. "I have no reason to be concerned."
Dawson said there is absolutely no truth to speculation that DeWine purposely omitted the language from the House-Senate conference report on the omnibus package because of concerns from local business owners about the reprogramming of the federal funds.
"He's been lobbied on both sides of the issue, but he determined that he wanted to give the local community as much flexibility as they needed," Dawson said of DeWine.
Among those lobbying against the funding shift was Bruce Zoldan, owner of the B.J. Alan Co., based in Youngstown. Zoldan had originally proposed a downtown arena but later disassociated himself from the project.
"A report showed that the arena would bring 500,000 people to downtown who wouldn't come here in its first year of operation," said William Weimer, B.J. Alan's vice president. "That would have an effect on downtown. If you build a new city hall and tear buildings down, that's just window dressing. It won't bring any more people downtown. This will do absolutely nothing for the community."
Weimer said DeWine listened to Zoldan's argument but didn't promise anything.
Another option to getting the funding changed is to attach a provision to another appropriations bill, Dawson said.
"It can happen through a number of ways," he said. "We have to find a way that's acceptable to everyone."
An official with the Senate parliamentarian agreed with the statements of Walsh, Dawson and McKelvey that there are several options to getting the funding reallocation approved, including attaching it to a bill that isn't remotely related to the convocation center or downtown Youngstown redevelopment.
Changes
If the change is approved, Youngstown could use the $25 million allocated for general downtown redevelopment and extend the September 2005 deadline to spend the money.
City officials want to use the money to demolish condemned buildings on West Federal Street; expand the Youngstown Business Incubator; and possibly build a new municipal court facility; find space for the Ohio 7th District Court of Appeals, which is in the Mahoning County Common Pleas Courthouse; and construct an office building where the former Masters Tuxedo building is.
The proposed funding change came after DeWine and U.S. Sen. George V. Voinovich, Ohio's other senator, were lobbied by Vindicator management last month. After that private meeting, the senators agreed to include an amendment to the omnibus package to shift the arena money, a move supported by city officials.
skolnick@vindy.com