Commissioners endorse application for recall of deputies

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

milliken@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The Mahoning County commissioners have endorsed the sheriff’s application for $2,112,054 in federal money to enable the recall of 14 of 65 sheriff’s deputies laid off in early June because of the county’s budget crunch.

The application is being made to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services for a three-year federal grant beginning in 2011.

Sgt. William Cappabianca of the sheriff’s department said the commissioners have agreed to fund those 14 deputy positions for a fourth year as a condition of the DOJ grant.

The deputies paid for by the grant likely must be used for road patrol and not as jailers, Cappabianca added.

In other action Wednesday, the commissioners approved a motion by Commissioner John A. McNally IV to table for one week resolutions that would have made Judee Genetin the permanent director of the county’s Department of Job and Family Services and Dave Nelson the county’s dog warden.

Genetin has been acting JFS director since October 2007, and Nelson has been acting dog warden for one year.

The way Genetin’s appointment was proposed was “unfair to the employees” of JFS and the community, protested the Rev. Kenneth Simon, pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church and chairman of the Community Mobilization Committee, which he described as a voter registration, education and mobilization organization.

“It sets a precedent that a job can be posted; we can interview; we can just appoint someone interim, and then wait two or three years and then just award the job without giving the others an opportunity to participate in the process or to be considered for the position,” the Rev. Mr. Simon said.

Jeannette Droney, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3577 at JFS’ child support enforcement agency, said, however, that Genetin has been “nothing but fair” to JFS workers and has been fully forthcoming with JFS budget information in advance of labor-contract talks.

“It’s a personnel issue. We’ll take it under consideration,” Anthony T. Traficanti, chairman of the commissioners, said of the tabling of the resolutions concerning Genetin and Nelson.

“I fully expect that we’ll be having those appointments on the agenda next week,” McNally added.

Using local, federal and Ohio Public Works Commission funds, the commissioners awarded a $1,408,048 contract for the East Alliance sanitary-sewer extension in Smith Township to Marucci & Gaffney Excavating Inc. of Youngstown.

They also awarded $308,404 worth of demolition contracts for dilapidated structures in various communities, including Campbell, Struthers and Smith Township, dividing the work among five contractors using federal neighborhood-stabilization funds.