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Mahoning Co. leaders make poor Port picks, ex-member charges
By ED RUNYAN
VIENNA
John J. Masternick, a former Western Reserve Port Authority member, says two recent appointments to the authority by Mahoning County commissioners suggest that they are not taking the appointments seriously.
Masternick, who served on the board for nearly 10 years, said he resigned last week because of extra family and work responsibilities brought on by the death of his father a year ago. His father and mother founded the Windsor House Inc. nursing home chain.
Masternick said he has a problem with the appointment of Don Hanni III 15 months ago and Andres Visnapuu in January. The positions are unpaid.
Masternick said he supports Hanni’s campaign to be a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, but he doesn’t believe the retired Ohio Department of Transportation employee has the background to serve on the port authority.
Hanni has been a vocal participant in many port authority meetings. In January 2009, Hanni told port authority members about a company called Dynalifter, which moves freight on blimps.
A Dynalifter representative later gave a presentation to the board, hoping that a deal could be struck to begin production of the blimp at the local airport.
Masternick said Hanni’s participation on the board has been unproductive and takes up “a lot of time.”
Hanni, who did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, also did not return calls seeking comment.
Masternick would not discuss his specific concerns about Visnapuu’s appointment, but last week the retired former business owner voted against the budget of new executive director Rose Ann DeLeon on the grounds that it lacked performance-based targets.
He said every aspect of the budget was excessive, including DeLeon’s pay package, which includes a $155,000 base salary.
When asked about Masternick’s comments, Mahoning County Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said he is “shocked” by the criticism, saying he doesn’t know why Masternick never got on the phone and voiced his concerns to him before now.
Traficanti said some port authority members may not like the amount of questioning they get from Hanni and Visnapuu, but he and his fellow commissioners have asked their appointments to be “watchdogs” for them because of the amount of Mahoning County hotel/motel tax money that goes into running the airport.
“We want active board members,” Traficanti said, adding that there was a perception in the past that port authority members did nothing but go to meetings and read newspapers. Board members are not paid.
Visnapuu said he believes the port authority is moving in a positive direction. Among those positive moves is a proposal he made at Wednesday’s meeting on buying electronic parking equipment to replace the parking company that has worked at the airport in recent years, he said.
The port authority discovered the company had not turned over all the revenue to the airport that it was owed. The authority has been recouping the lost revenue in recent months.
Visnapuu said his proposal “keeps the system out of human hands” and might be worth trying on a limited basis to improve parking revenue.
Visnapuu said he criticized DeLeon’s budget for not demonstrating a means for collecting revenue. His proposal is one way to improve on that weakness, he added.