Metro digest || Squadron deploying

Squadron deploying

VIENNA — About 20 members of the 910th Airlift Wing’s Civil Engineering Squadron at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station here are scheduled to leave Monday afternoon for a six-month deployment to Kirkuk Air Base, Iraq, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The group is to return to the Mahoning Valley in August.

Fatal crash

YOUNGSTOWN — A city man is dead after the car he was driving struck a utility pole.

Daniel Mercado of Shehy Street died around 11:30 p.m. Friday after his car left the road and hit a utility pole in the 2200 block of Oak Street in Youngstown. Mercado wasn’t wearing a seat belt and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to a release from the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office. A preliminary examination revealed he died of injuries to his head and neck caused by the accident.

A passenger in the car was treated at St. Elizabeth Health Center. The coroner’s office is still investigating.

McDonald Boe meeting

McDONALD — McDonald Board of Education has changed plans to take action on additional budget cuts at a meeting at 4 p.m. today, and will instead meet in executive session only to discuss them. Action on an additional $400,000 in cuts, which have been requested by the state Financial Planning and Supervision Commission, to go with $518,497 in cuts presented to the commission Thursday, will come at a meeting between 7:45 and 8 a.m. Monday. The new schedule allows the district to notify any employees who would be affected by the reductions to be notified in advance of the board’s action. A new plan must be presented to the commission when it meets at 1 p.m. Monday at the high school.

H1N1 flu clinic

YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County Health Department will have an H1N1 flu-vaccine clinic from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday at the main public library lower level meeting room, 305 Wick Ave. Both the nasal and injectable vaccines will be available free. Children under 10 who have received their first H1N1 vaccination are eligible to receive their second dose if their first dose was given one month earlier. Local public health officials urge that the vaccine be given to anyone age 6 months or older because the flu season can extend into April.