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Plan for JEDZ in Struthers advances
Youngstown will go forward with the study, with or without cooperation.
STRUTHERS — City council advanced to a second reading of a resolution to cooperate with Youngstown in conducting a feasibility study for the establishment of a joint economic development zone between Youngstown, Campbell and Struthers.
Because council now goes into summer recess and will not have another regular meeting until September, unless a special meeting is called to pass the measure, Struthers’ interests may be left out of the Youngstown-financed study.
Sarah V. Lown, development incentive manager for Youngstown, urged council to pass the resolution, saying that participating in the study would be the best way for Struthers officials and residents to have their concerns addressed.
“We don’t want the study to be only from the Youngstown perspective. We want input from all the sides. We would like it to represent Struthers interests, too. We want to look at an area we can all develop and all win,” Lown said at Wednesday’s council meeting.
She said with or without Struthers’ cooperation, however, Youngstown is going to move forward with the study.
Youngstown City Council has appropriated $92,000 for the study, and Campbell City Council passed a resolution to cooperate with the study June 3.
Several members of Struthers council, as well as Mayor Terry Stocker, want to move more slowly, however.
“I want to make sure the concerns of council are addressed and that Struthers citizens are represented in the study,” said Councilman Michael S. Patrick, D at-large, chairman of council’s Community Development Committee.
Stocker said he would not make a recommendation on cooperation with the study because he did not want to sway council either way.
“I think studies are a good thing, but we have to be careful what we get into,” Stocker said.
A letter from Struthers resident Gene Yuhas urged the mayor and council to not get involved in Youngstown’s study.
“I and others have concluded that this study and any dealings with Youngstown would be a bad idea,” Yuhas wrote. “Struthers needs to keep its own identity and develop our own community development and infrastructure without having to surrender our water utility.”
Youngstown has proposed a joint economic development zone, or JEDZ, with Struthers and Campbell that involves some 1,200 undeveloped acres along the Mahoning River known as the Mahoning River Corridor of Opportunity.
The proposal calls for the three cities to evenly split a 2 percent income tax that would be imposed on only new businesses. The plan also calls for the use of Youngstown water in the JEDZ.
The study would help determine what it will cost to maintain Youngstown water system in the future, and what it would take to acquire the Aqua Ohio water systems in Campbell and Struthers, Lown said.
Aqua, a private water company, provides water to Campbell and Struthers.
“The whole plan is to hold down water rates” and give Campbell and Struthers Youngstown water rates, which are less than half of what Aqua charges, Lown said.
The study is necessary to leverage the funds needed to develop the MRCO, she said.