Brown calls for increase in help

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U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Avon)

The senator said the federal government can fund the heating program.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

and D.A. WILKINSON

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITERS

YOUNGSTOWN — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown pushed for increased federal funding to help pay heating bills for the needy in Mahoning County and met with Columbiana County officials to discuss how the U.S. government can help local economic development.

The Democratic senator called for increases in funding to federal programs that provide assistance for low-income families and the elderly who can’t afford to pay their heating bills.

President Bush vetoed Congress’ plan to spend $2.2 billion in 2008 for the Low Income Heating Assistance Program saying it was too costly. Bush’s budget called for $1.8 billion for the plan that helps eligible low-income people to meet their home heating needs.

“It’s a question of priorities,” Brown of Avon said at a Thursday stop outside Mahoning/Youngstown Community Action Partnership on East Federal Street in Youngstown. “The federal government can come up with the money.”

The federal government is paying $2.5 billion a week to fund the war in Iraq, but Bush won’t pay the additional $400 million for the heating assistance program, Brown said.

Brown said he and other senators will propose a $1 billion emergency spending plan for the program. But he said he was unsure how successful that plan would be.

In Columbiana County, business leaders said things are looking up, while educators, police, and social-service agencies complained about cuts in federal funding.

Tracy Drake, the chief executive officer of the Columbiana County Port Authority, said the Baard Energy project on the Ohio River near Wellsville is a go.

The project that will turn coal into liquid fuel now has an estimated cost of $6 million, Drake said.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency will have to approve the plans once they are complete, but state workers have been talking to Baard engineers to prevent design problems that could slow the process.

The plant construction is expected to employ several thousand workers for several years.

David Hughes of Salem, owner of Specialty Fab Inc. in North Lima, said business is good but that half of his potential workers can’t pass a drug test.

“They either say ‘forget it,’ or say they will take the test and don’t show up,” Hughes said.

Iris Marshelak, director of the Columbiana County Office on Aging, told Brown, “Spending for senior programs has been stagnant for 20 years, and that’s not encouraging.”

She said the site in Salem may be reduced to four days a week and two part-time workers will be laid off.

Leetonia Police Chief John Soldano said, “We don’t see a lot of money from the federal government.” Federal funding dried up in the mid-1990s for local police departments, he estimated.

Now, Soldano said, “There are more [federal] mandates, more paperwork, and more work to keep up with mandates.”