Commissioners should be making decisions that affect taxpayers and downtown businesses

EDITOR:

Who’s running Mahoning County anyway?

George Tablack has been immersed in Mahoning County politics for years. A few years ago Tablack left Mahoning County for greener pastures in Florida. However, in a brief period of time he learned that the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence and he landed back in Mahoning County government by virtue of a two-to-one vote by the county commissioners. The details surrounding Tablack’s rapid departure and hasty return have always been a little fuzzy, but one thing is for sure: Tablack imagines himself to be the puppeteer pulling the strings behind the curtain of Mahoning County government.

A case in point are the recent articles that have appeared in The Vindicator regarding steam service at the county’s Oakhill Renaissance and Youngstown Thermal, LLC. Steam for heating and cooling has been an integral part of the city of Youngstown’s central business district for over 100 years. The concept, known as district energy, of producing steam at a central plant and then distributing that steam through underground pipelines among customers located in densely populated central business districts is widely known to be a very efficient and cost effective method of managing building utility costs. The concept has been employed successfully throughout most major cities across America. Coincidentally, Youngstown Thermal uses coal in the production of its steam, and coal costs are roughly one-third that of natural gas. Hence, steam from Youngstown Thermal has an inherent advantage over heating produced using natural gas.

Be this as it may, Tablack is encouraging the commissioners to abandon steam from Youngstown Thermal at Oakhill in favor of an in-building heating system. Furthermore, he is advancing this notion and ignoring the consequences that this action could have upon the rest of the city of Youngstown’s commercial businesses, Youngstown State University, and other city and federal government office buildings.

A couple of years ago, the county commissioned an engineering study to explore the economics of replacing steam service from Youngstown Thermal at its various facilities within the footprint of the city of Youngstown namely, Oakhill, the Courthouse, the County Administration Building and the Mahoning County Justice Center. Tablack intended to use this report to leverage Youngstown Thermal into reducing its steam price to Mahoning County and to reinforce the county’s purchase of Oakhill. However, when the conclusions drawn in the study suggested that Youngstown Thermal’s rates were already superior to any alternatives available to the county and the county was already experiencing significant operating cost savings by remaining with Youngstown Thermal, Tablack buried the study. He instructed the county’s facilities director to abandon steam service at the Courthouse, Administration Building, and the Justice Center by re-commissioning the county’s old natural gas fired boilers at these locations as an alternative means of leveraging Youngstown Thermal into reducing their rates.

All of this begs the question: Who’s running the county anyway, and does Tablack have the autonomy to manipulate the commissioners, dictate rates for service from a regulated public utility, and unduly affect operating costs to business owners, building managers and state supported universities?

The voters of Mahoning County didn’t elect George Tablack. We elected our three county commissioners and Tablack works for the voters of Mahoning County. He should be obligated to do what is in the best interests of the voters and spending the voters’ money wisely should be one of his highest priorities. Spending another $2.6 million of taxpayer money on Oakhill for boilers as a punitive measure against Youngstown Thermal is nonsense.

MARK A. BUTTA

Youngstown

X The writer was vice president of business development of Youngstown Thermal and Thermal Ventures. He now works for Rex Energy Corp.