Official sets goal to beautify 4th Ward

The focus extends to street repaving and sidewalk repair, an unusual approach.
& lt;a href=mailto:rgsmith@vindy.com & gt;By ROGER SMITH & lt;/a & gt;
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Carol Rimedio-Righetti wants the gateways to her West Side city ward to look neat and clean and to stay that way.
But the new Democratic 4th Ward councilwoman isn't just talking about it. She is putting her organizational efforts and her share of city money into the vision.
Rimedio-Righetti has a plan that involves one-time fix-ups and ongoing maintenance to make -- and keep -- Mahoning Avenue and Meridian Road more attractive for residents and businesses.
"We need to tell people out there we area a viable city," she said. "Make business people know we are friendly to them coming to Mahoning Avenue to bring a business."
The plan's first step was taken Saturday.
Group's effort
About 50 people from West Side neighborhoods, businesses, churches and schools gathered to pick up trash and clean up Mahoning.
Others, including Choffin Career Center students, started work on a mural on the side of the Jenkins Sign Co. at 1400 Mahoning. The building is the first that drivers see crossing over the Mahoning Avenue Bridge from downtown.
Rimedio-Righetti wants the gateway to be a good-looking introduction to the West Side. The mural will combine with the Fellows Riverside Gardens entrance across the street to achieve that, she said.
She also had city engineering and housing inspection officials review the homes and business along Mahoning. Code violations will be noted and enforced, she said.
Rimedio-Righetti plans such cleanup, improvement and enforcement sweeps at least twice a year to make sure Mahoning stays in good shape.
That's not all.
Rimedio-Righetti is extending her focus on Mahoning and Meridian to the street repaving and sidewalk repair money she controls.
Spending focus
The councilwoman pledges to concentrate such spending on the two main roads.
This summer, she expects to have the city repave Mahoning between Belle Vista Avenue and Steel Street. She also expects the city to repave about 3,000 feet of Meridian, starting at Mahoning.
The city is to spend about $1 million this year repaving streets, dividing the money among the seven wards. Council members and city engineers collaborate to create a priority list and repave as many streets as each ward budget allows. That typically amounts to segments of six to nine streets per ward.
Historically, council members have shunned Rimedio-Righetti's focus on just one or two sections of their ward for political reasons. Council members feel obligated to scatter the work around a ward because so many people wanting their own street to be repaved or sidewalks to be fixed.
The first-year councilwoman says she isn't worried about politics.
Getting it done
She sympathizes with residents who want their street cared for now. But the West Side's gateways need to make an impact and concentrating the work on those spots is the way to accomplish it, she said.
"I can't do a half job here and a third of a job there and make a difference," she said. "You have to finish a project."
Rimedio-Righetti said she will buck convention because of the potential.
She expects residents in neighborhoods off Mahoning and Meridian to see the improved look of the main drags and start cleanups of their own. When they do, Rimedio-Righetti says she'll focus her spending, such as street and sidewalks, in their neighborhoods.
Rimedio-Righetti said she'll work with other council members to take the approach citywide.
"The best place to start is home, and home is the 4th Ward," she said.
& lt;a href=mailto:rgsmith@vindy.com & gt;rgsmith@vindy.com & lt;/a & gt;