TRUMBULL COUNTY Officials will vote on pulling CVB funds

The money could help with an airport paving project.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Trumbull County commissioners are expected to vote today on a measure that would strip funding away from the county Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The resolution, which commissioners Joseph J. Angelo Jr. and James G. Tsagaris say they support, would take the bureau's share of the money from a tax on hotel rooms and give it to the Western Reserve Regional Port Authority, which runs the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna Township.
"I think that Trumbull County will be better served by giving the money to the airport at this particular time," Angelo said.
The port authority and convention bureau split the proceeds of Trumbull County's 4 percent room tax, which raises about $600,000 a year. Mahoning County also supports the port authority through its room tax.
This week, the port authority officials will ask commissioners in both counties to contribute an additional $110,000. The money would help the authority get a $2.1 million grant from the FAA to pave areas of the airport used by private planes, said airport director Steve Bowser.
Pavement in the facility's general aviation area has deteriorated to the point were there is a risk of damage to expensive aircraft, he said.
"The general aviation is a very important aspect of the airport," Bowser added. "General aviation could be the answer to our future."
Commissioner Daniel Polivka said that he has noticed areas of the airport parking lot that also need to be repaved. He said he has not decided how room tax money should be split between the port authority and visitors bureau.
The situation
Although the county continues to collect the tax for the visitors bureau, it has not actually passed any money along to the bureau since November.
In December, Tsagaris called for all the members of the visitors bureau board to resign after he learned that the bureau had accumulated more than $200,000 savings in its bank account.
Several board members stepped down, but the dispute with the remaining three board members deepened when the board acted on its own to replace two of them.
Angelo said he thought the dispute would probably be settled in court. In the meantime, the room tax money could be used by the airport instead of continuing to pile up in a county account, he said.
Between this money and the savings previously accumulated by the visitors bureau, the bureau should have enough money to meet its anticipated costs this year, Tsagaris said.
Tsagaris proposed taking room tax proceeds away from the visitors bureau five weeks ago, but commissioners decided to give negotiations with the board a chance to work.
Tsagaris said it was too early to talk about if the bureau would be funded next year.