Board OKs 8 demolition contracts

August 20, 2010 at 12:03a.m.

By DAVID SKOLNICK

YOUNGSTOWN

The city’s board of control approved eight separate contracts, totaling $171,972, to demolish about 55 vacant houses.

Also Thursday, the board approved six contracts, worth $54,095, for asbestos abatement at 33 dilapidated structures to be demolished later this year.

The money for all of the work came from $600,000 Mahoning County gave the city Aug. 6 for abatement and housing demolition. That amount was money not used by other communities in the county from a $1.9 million federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program grant the county received last year.

Contracts for NSP funding must be finalized by Aug. 27 under federal guidelines for this program, said Sean McKinney, Youngstown’s buildings and grounds commissioner.

The county previously allocated $402,000 for housing demolition in Youngstown from the federal grant.

“We got a better than fair share because of our ability to fulfill the qualifications to get the funds,” said Youngstown Finance Director David Bozanich.

In contrast, Austintown trustees complained earlier this month that it received only $1,800 of the nearly $60,000 the county earmarked for housing demolitions in the township. County officials said Austintown didn’t receive its full allocation because the township demolished structures that are in areas that didn’t qualify for NSP funding.

Instead, that unused money earmarked for Austintown went to Youngstown.

The city previously had awarded demolition and abatement contracts for the additional $600,000 it recently received from the county and expects to award what it has left, about $100,000, in the coming days, McKinney said.

Overall, the city will abate and demolish 140 to 160 vacant residential houses with the $600,000, McKinney said.

City officials could provide lists of houses to be demolished for only four of the eight contracts awarded Thursday to The Vindicator. They were supposed to be in the law director’s office, but for unexplained reasons, four were missing. Also, a computer in the buildings and grounds office that had the demolition list wasn’t working Thursday afternoon.

All 30 houses on those four lists are on the city’s South Side.

McKinney said the houses to be demolished are on all sides of the city.

Also, all 33 houses on the asbestos- abatement list are on the South Side.