Minority coalition forms to meet with commission

Officials fired an employee accused of burglarizing a home while on the job.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF Writer
YOUNGSTOWN -- A coalition of representatives from the black and Hispanic communities will meet monthly with Mahoning County commissioners to share information and concerns about their neighborhoods.
Commissioners announced the formation of the coalition, which is yet unnamed, at their meeting Monday at the Chevrolet Centre.
"We have a lot of concerns regarding our neighborhoods," said Bishop C.M. Jenkins, pastor of Grace Evangelistic Temple Church.
The idea for the coalition formed, he said, through talks with commissioners.
"The black community and the Hispanic community, in so many things, felt they were being left out," Pastor Jenkins said.
The group includes pastors of inner-city churches as well as leaders of civic groups, such as Organizacion Civica y Cultural Hispana Americana, also known as OCCHA.
Sometimes, people approach Pastor Jenkins and the other leaders about a concern or issue they've heard about.
The coalition enables those representatives of churches or civic groups to discuss those concerns, ask questions and relay that information to members, he said.
"Many people in the city and county feel there's a disconnect between the city and what's goes on in the county," said Anthony Traficanti, commissioners' chairman.
Tax break OK'd
In other business, commissioners approved a 55 percent property tax abatement for eight years for an Austintown company.
Trumbull MARS on Victoria East Road plans a 10,000-square-foot addition to its facility and expects to hire one part-time employee and four or five full-time employees next year, company president Michael Myhal told commissioners. The addition is estimated to cost $500,000.
The company, which employs 24 people, manufactures hydraulics, pneumatics and electrical components and products for the health-care industry.
Austintown trustees approved the abatement last week.
Firing and hiring
Commissioners also terminated one employee and hired another.
Carmine J. Ramunno, 23, of Edison Street, Struthers, a technician in the sanitary engineer's office, was fired. He was charged last week with burglarizing a Struthers home Dec. 8 while he was on the job.
His work involved recording the location of manholes using a Global Positioning System, officials have said.
Joseph Warino, sanitary engineer, said that Ramunno, who was hired in August, was in the probationary period of his employment.
They also hired Judee Genetin as deputy director of the Department of Job and Family Services. Genetin, a former director of the legal services department of Stark County's DJFS, will earn about $70,000 a year.