On W. Fed St., reaction was ‘Oakhill?’

There we go again. We’re bad. Again.

That was pretty much the expected reaction from the indictments handed down Thursday against several current and former public officials and two business owners accused of manipulating county affairs.

Reaction from many corners Thursday and Friday pointed to the 73-count indictment as yet another black eye for the Valley: “Why would outsiders want to come here?”

You know the mantra.

More than 100 people added their comments to Vindy.com message boards. In the first hours of the news Thursday night, 4,300 readers came to our website for the story, and more than 600 folks downloaded the indictment document from our site.

The truth is, in other places where the Valley really matters, such as downtown on Federal Street, the reaction was quite different. And that is good and bad.

Youngstown’s future percolates daily inside the Youngstown Business Incubator, where 300-plus people click, scan and Tweet away in various tech ways. YBI’s boss, Jim Cossler, said that as of noon Friday, no one at the campus even mentioned the |indictments.

He did not hear about the news Thursday when folks hit our message boards complaining and moaning. He saw it Friday morning.

Inside YBI’s prized child, Turning Technologies, chief executive Mike Broderick said he was aware of the news, but it did not resonate at work.

“There has been no talk of it that I have been involved in here at Turning. Rather, as always, most of us are focusing on the positives that are happening in Turning and the Mahoning Valley.”

Between the county’s government struggles and bright successes such as YBI is an alphabet soup of nonprofits that sustain our community and also rely on it — depending on the hand that’s extended.

Phil Kidd of Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative said Thursday’s news slows things down a bit, but just a bit.

“I don’t think [the indictments] impact what’s going on on the ground. There’s a new, emerging Youngstown. Then there are parts that are dying off — like the old politics.

“To me, [Thursday] is part of the transition.”

It’s appealing, to a degree, that the brightest minds just soldier on regardless.

But inevitably, those minds will need to be more than sources of innovation. They need to be solutions to this leadership problem we have.

Of the indicted officials, I know a couple of them to say “hello” and “nice weather” — not much more. But I’m not inspired by great college careers that go right from campus and into government — especially in this town. It’s too easy to become leveraged ladder-climbers on the public dole, and influenced by folks such as the Cafaros.

True, Thursday’s indictment targets are not convicted, only charged. But having seen the 7 inches or so of records, what they did, if not a crime, then surely was not pure.

Kidd says that time is close for new leaders.

“There’s a new wave stepping up,” said Kidd. “We don’t want story lines like this. The talent is here, and the seeds are planted.”

Another downtowner — not from here, but in the YBI circles — is not so sure.

“Do you really want to spend your time fighting? You have embedded groups here that will fight till the end over things that are not that important. I can’t recall anyone looking to the county to come up with a solution for the Valley.”

I agree with that to an extent. There may not be solutions from the county. But there are our tax dollars. Millions of them. And those have to be spent by someone.

The indictments this week hardly deflate the Valley and all that is going on downtown or at V&M or at Lordstown or at YBI.

But they open a door for the right things that have been happening elsewhere to possibly happen in government.

It just needs the right people to step up.

Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator.

He likes e-mails about stories and our newspaper. E-mail at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on Vindy.com