Youngstown council receives facts sought about projects

By Harold Gwin

YOUNGSTOWN — City council appears to have gotten the answers it wanted regarding Neighborhood Stabilization Program-funded projects being proposed by the city administration.

Nearly all of city council showed up at a council community development agency committee meeting Monday to hear from Bill D’Avignon, city CDA director, and Mayor Jay Williams regarding two contracts to be funded with NSP money. Council also picked up details on a third funded from other sources.

Council had recently refused to approve all three contracts, saying the administration didn’t provide sufficient information for council’s review.

D’Avignon said Monday that he is guilty of not relaying everything that is going on in his office but added that there is a lot happening. The city’s Web site now will include a link showing NSP spending to show the public where the money is being used, he said.

D’Avignon, at the request of Councilman Jamael Tito Brown, CDA committee chairman, outlined the contracts in question and then responded to a variety of questions from city council members seeking more details.

Brown said later that he believes council’s concerns have been addressed and the contracts will likely be approved.

The first is a rental-property registration and inspection program for landlords.

The administration proposed hiring Maureen O’Neill for an 18-month period to develop and launch the rental property registration. She would be paid $40,050 from NSP funds for that work.

D’Avignon said she was offered the task because of her familiarity with city code work and a recommendation from the mayor.

The second is a $30,000 contract for Robert Weily for a 12-month term to identify properties that are vacant and have been the subject of foreclosures that the city can buy, rehabilitate and sell to someone who will live in them.

The goal is to help stabilize neighborhoods, D’Avignon said, with the city acting as “an investor with a conscience.”

He said Weily was offered the job based on his 38 years of experience in the real-estate field and his involvement in helping the city prepare its application for the $2.7 million NSP grant.

D’Avignon also addressed a proposal to spend $39,000 in Environmental Protection Agency grant money to hire Steve Novotny as a consultant to develop a housing-deconstruction program. Council had refused to approve that hiring a few weeks ago.

The EPA and the federal Department of Housing & Urban Development are looking at this as a pilot program that, if successful, can be expanded to other communities, he said.

The program won’t compromise the city’s ongoing demolition program but could become a part of the overall effort to remove blight, the mayor said.

It could also lead to lower demolition costs because of the value of items in a home that is to be deconstructed, the mayor said, noting that the average house-demolition cost to the city now is $2,500.

gwin@vindy.com