Misdeeds, corruption: Is it who we are?

YOUNGSTOWN — “Crime Town U.S.A.”

That’s what the Saturday Evening Post called the Mahoning Valley in a 1963 cover story. The article stated Youngstown “exemplifies the truism that rackets cannot survive without two basic conditions — the sanction of police and politicians and an apathetic public.”

In the article, the Post wrote: “The time now has come for action on the part of the whole citizenry. Until each honest man is aroused, the cesspool will remain. And Youngstown will remain a shame to the nation.”

A lot happened to the Valley in the 45 years that followed the article. But the area has failed to shed its reputation for political corruption, even though only a handful of public officials and employees have been convicted of crimes in the past five years.

A number of those who live in the Valley seem to accept political corruption as a given.

“The attitudes of the past help breed” corruption, said Tony Paglia, the Regional Chamber’s vice president of governmental affairs since 2007, who previously spent 30 years as an editor and reporter with The Vindicator. “...People are more cynical here than the typical person.”

Read more in Sunday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com