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Mahoning gives bond for V&M to Trumbull
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning County commissioners have agreed to give $10.4 million in tax-exempt bonds to Trumbull County to use for V&M Star’s $650 million expansion.
The recovery-zone facility bonds, which come from federal stimulus money and are allocated by the state, will be used with $8.4 million from Trumbull County’s bond allocation toward construction of a pipe mill for V&M.
The mill will be on land within Trumbull County that was annexed from Girard to Youngstown for the project.
V&M will pay back the low-interest loan at a rate and in a time period yet to be determined, said Walter M. Good, vice president of the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.
This money is separate from the $20 million in stimulus funding initially committed to site preparation for the V&M project, Good said.
In their Wednesday resolution, the commissioners returned their allocation to the state for use in Trumbull County, where the majority of V&M’s expansion will occur.
“This is a great regional effort made by Mahoning County with the chamber to go ahead and support probably one of the largest projects going on in the country at this time,” said Anthony T. Traficanti, chairman of the county commissioners.
“It really is, and the state has prioritized the V&M project,” Good replied. State officials also hope V&M will soon commit to build a $350 million melt shop at the Youngstown site, he added.
“We get calls regularly from economic development publications and site selectors asking us about the status of the project and complimenting the way that the community came together to make this project happen ... in such a tough economic development climate,” Good said.
“Our people will be working up there as well as folks in Trumbull County. We have to work as a region. We have to cooperate,” Traficanti said. The new mill will employ about 350 people.
The commissioners will meet again at 10 a.m. today to approve the county’s permanent 2010 budget.
“It’s not going to be too encouraging, and it’s probably going to require a lot of departments to make some tough decisions,” Traficanti said of the budget.
Today is the deadline for the commissioners to adopt it.
Traficanti declined to discuss negotiations between Youngstown and the county concerning the operation and funding of the county jail.
A telephone status-conference among city and county officials, lawyers who won a lawsuit by jail inmates concerning jail crowding, and U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster will be at noon April 9.
The federal court is supervising jail operations under a consent decree that settled the inmate lawsuit.
The city’s agreement to pay the county $80 per inmate per day for each city misdemeanor prisoner in the county jail beyond its 71st inmate expired in February.