Dann opens office with ribbon-cutting

Dann opens office
with ribbon-cutting

YOUNGSTOWN — During his successful campaign last year for attorney general, Marc Dann said his office would have a presence in the Mahoning Valley. On Thursday, Dann, a Liberty Democrat, held a ceremonial ribbon-cutting on a new office at the city-owned 20 Federal Place. About 200 people packed the third-floor lobby outside the office for the event. The office, at the former Phar-Mor Centre, employs 38 employees — 16 from Dann’s new statewide predatory lending task force and 22 from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation’s former office in Boardman. The jobs have a combined annual salary of $1.8 million. Dann envisions the new 21,517-square-foot office as a viable facility for years to come. The attorney general’s office signed a two-year lease with the city for the space with free rent in the first year and a payment of $2 per square foot a year in the second year. The office also will pay $1.75 per square foot annually in both years for a common space area fee. The attorney general’s office is prohibited by state law to sign lease agreements for more than two years.

Museum to mark
third anniversary

YOUNGSTOWN — The Children’s Museum of the Valley will celebrate its third anniversary Saturday with story times, birthday-related arts and crafts and free cookies and punch. Anyone celebrating a birthday Saturday will receive free admission. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for those older than 55, and $3 for children. Those under 3 and museum members get in free. The museum is open regularly 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday. The museum is open Sundays from October through May. For more information, call the museum at (330) 744-5914 or send e-mail to info@valleykids.org.

2 suspects held
in theft of purse

BOARDMAN — Police and members of the U.S. Marshal’s Task Force arrested two people in an Aug. 2 purse-snatching outside a U.S. Route 224 eatery. Steven M. Filimon, 21, of Bentley Avenue, Youngstown, is charged with robbery, and Amanda Leskey, 18, of Coitsville-Hubbard Road, Youngstown, is charged with complicity to robbery. Both were arrested Wednesday at Filimon’s home. Both were in the Mahoning County Jail. On Aug. 2, a Virginia woman told police that a man grabbed her purse and fled as she was leaving the Olive Garden. The man jumped into a car that left the parking lot. A witness obtained the car’s license plate number, registered to Leskey.

Bike used in assault

WARREN — A 37-year-old man told police he was assaulted with a bike. He said he was on his front porch in the 100 block of Belmont Street northeast about 1 a.m. Thursday when a man riding a bike begin to curse and insult a woman. The victim told the man to leave; the man then beat him with the bike, a police report said. When the victim fought back, the man fled — on the bike. The victim had several cuts on his left arm and abdomen.

Crash kills motorcyclist

HANOVERTON — A 20-year-old motorcyclist died Wednesday night when his cycle crashed into a fence post and utility pole. Michael Pitts, of Hanoverton, was pronounced dead at the scene at Graves and Lindesmith roads, said the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The patrol said Pitts was driving his cycle south on Graves about 6:15 p.m. when it went off the right side of the road, striking the post and then the pole. He was not wearing a helmet.

2 OVI roadblocks

The Trumbull Operating a Vehicle Impaired Task Force will operate two roadblocks to check for drunken drivers today. One will be from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Ridge Road in Howland. The other will be 10 p.m. today to 2 a.m. Saturday on Myron Street in Hubbard.