Reader tired of inaction on Milton area sewer project

Reader tired of inaction onMilton area sewer project
EDITOR:
How very, very "old" Mahoning County. I'm speaking about the antics and actions of several Mahoning County officials at a meeting in Milton Township July 8 to discuss a multi-government funded sewer and water project for western Mahoning County.
Although it's been 10 years since the EPA deemed that raw sewage was flowing directly into Lake Milton and five years since U.S. Rep. Jim Traficant surprised Mahoning County officials with a $5 million federal grant, one old and two newly elected Mahoning County officials had no answers and offered the same lame answers as their predecessors.
Commissioner John McNally said: "We cannot speed up some of the procedural issues, other than personally walking documents from person to person and driving to Columbus."
Uh, sir, excuse me, but a trio of commissioners before you issued nearly $2 million to two separate sets of engineers in February 2003. We should be a long way past the walking papers around this segment of this project.
Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said: "There are too many fingers in the project. It has created a conundrum." Now I have to admit that I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, so I had to look that last word up in my thesaurus. "Conundrum" means riddle, charade, rebus and logogriph. I hope that clears up the real message for poor readers like me.
Mahoning County Sanitary Engineer Joseph Warino, the man who has had his name in Vindicator articles every year since Dec. 20, 2000, regarding the Jackson-Milton water/sewer project didn't even bother to attend the meeting or send a representative. Perhaps he didn't wish to explain that both he and county Engineer Richard Marsico stated in a Feb. 24, 2001, Vindicator article that the Jackson-Milton sewer/water project topped the list in a sewer, water and roads State Issue 2 state loans and grants program, amounting to a combined $19.5 million headed for Mahoning County.
In the next Vindicator article on Sept. 13, 2002, Mr. Warino again reiterated that the actual construction should begin by the end of the year. "The county also learned this week that it has received a $3,488,000 grant and a $2,264,000 loan from the Department of Agriculture," Warino said.
A Feb. 16, 2003, Vindicator article announced that the Mahoning County commissioners had approved funding of $734,000 to Thomas Fok & amp; Associates and another $850,105 to MS Consultants. Joseph Warino, sanitary engineer stated that Fok will handle the sanitary and MS Consultants will do the water. Mr. Warino stated further that the project should get started in the early spring and take about two years to complete.
It's my humble prediction that water will freeze in Hades before it flows through plastic pipes around Lake Milton.
DAVID METZLER
North Jackson
United States can't affordto give billions to Africa
EDITOR:
I do not feel that it is proper for our government to pledge billions of dollars to help feed the poor in Africa. We don't even feed all of the poor in our own country. I would like to have a world where no one is hungry, but I feel that the responsibility to feed the hungry is not that of our government, especially those who are hungry in Africa.
When have we ever exploited any of the African countries? If you look back a few years, nearly all of the African countries were colonies of European nations. The Europeans are responsible for the poverty and hunger in Africa -- not the United States. We have tremendous surpluses of wheat and corn. I think we could send a lot of this to Africa, but not money.
If we, or any European nations, send money, it will all end up in the pocket of some despot and never feed the poor.
GEORGE GRIM
Boardman