Disagreement over levy feeds public discontent
On April 7, a Vindicator news story about the fledgling Trumbull County Senior Services Advisory Council contained the following two paragraphs:
"Committee member Jack O'Connell, another of the handful of the levy organizers, and Commissioner Dan Polivka agreed that before providing services, the committee should review the promises made to voters.
"The levy sponsors said senior citizens transportation was the No. 1 need, but they also listed priorities as $1,141,000 for in-home services for shut-ins, $650,000 for prescription assistance and community services, and $239,000 for protective services. It listed transportation around $460,000."
But just three months later, O'Connell, the advisory council's chairman, contended that anyone who believes that $460,000 would be used to expand transportation for seniors "jumped the gun." Who are some of the individuals O'Connell says are misinformed? Howland Township Administrator Darlene St. George, Liberty Township Administrator Patrick J. Ungaro, Niles Mayor Ralph A. Infante and Mark Hess, Niles development coordinator, among others.
Literature distributed by Citizens for Trumbull County Seniors during last year's campaign for the passage of the .75-mill senior citizens levy also said that $460,000 would be set aside for senior transportation.
Yet, as the front page story in last Sunday's Vindicator revealed, local officials, such as St. George, Ungaro, Infante and Hess, are voicing concern that the promises made to the community to win support for the levy will not be kept.
Negative impact
The evolving battle between the officials on one side and O'Connell of Girard and Janet Schweitzer, director of SCOPE of Trumbull County Inc., a nonprofit agency, on the other already is having a negative impact.
Mayor Infante has threatened to shut down the Niles-Trumbull Transit System if Trumbull County government does not come up with its share of the operating expenses. He wants the county to reimburse the city $151,000 to help pay for the system's operation this year. The Senior Services Advisory Council has declined.
Infante had hoped to expand the Niles-Trumbull Transit System this year as a result of the levy's passage, but now won't be able to until 2007.
Two years ago voters turned down a senior citizens levy, an indication of the deep-seated suspicion the public has about government's ability to spend money wisely. The current controversy over the promises made -- or not made -- during last year's campaign simply adds to that perception.
This impasse cannot continue to exist indefinitely. It is inconceivable to us that so many different public officials in Trumbull County would hear the same promise made, only to now be told that there was something wrong with their ears.
O'Connell and Schweitzer should explain how it was that the Citizens for Trumbull County Seniors came to the same conclusion as St. George and the others, namely that $460,000 from the levy's proceeds would be used for senior transportation.