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Tablack: Closing after quake was best plan
Photo
George Tablack
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning County’s administrator said he made the best decision he could based on the limited information available to him when he closed Oakhill Renaissance Place for the rest of the day and ordered an inspection after the June 23 earthquake.
“We dealt with what we knew when we knew it to the best of our ability,” Administrator George J. Tablack said of his decision-making in consultation with Pete Triveri, county facilities director.
Oakhill already was evacuated after the earthquake when Tablack ordered Oakhill closed for the remainder of the day, Tablack said.
“I did not evacuate the building. The building was evacuated, and everyone was outside when I first received a phone call,” Tablack said Thursday.
That call came at 2:10 p.m., about 25 minutes after the quake, from Jim Adams, a staff representative from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Tablack recalled.
AFSCME represents employees of the county’s Department of Job and Family Services, which is located in the county-owned Oakhill complex. Oakhill is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center.
Adams asked Tablack what he was “going to do about all the people outside of the building,” recalled Tablack, who said he was in Akron when Adams called him.
Adams did not respond to a request to comment.
“I had no way to assess the situation, other than to try to calm labor’s concerns,” about the shaking of the former hospital building, Tablack said.
Tablack said he then called Triveri, who confirmed that an earthquake had occurred.
“I had no way of knowing at that time what the magnitude is or what the concerns were or why people left the building,” Tablack said. He added that he believes the Oakhill workers self- evacuated and that there was no management- directed evacuation.
Barry Landgraver, director of the county’s Veterans Service Commission, however, said he ordered his eight-member staff to leave the building after a JFS Medicaid worker told him the building was being evacuated.
The quake was later determined to be a 5.0 magnitude seismic event with an epicenter near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
“My problem is how to convince a labor representative and his employees to go back in the building,” Tablack said. “All we’re trying to do is calm our labor forces after an event occurred.
“I have to give reasonable assurance to a union representative that it is safe for his employees to go back in that building.”
Tablack said he and his facilities staff determined that a structural engineer should examine Oakhill, which was built in stages between 1910 and 1972; the 1956-vintage county administration building; and the century-old county courthouse for quake damage. The courthouse and administration building were not evacuated.
Tablack said Triveri informed him that the inspection, performed the afternoon of the quake, determined that all three buildings were safe for occupancy.
All Oakhill workers were back on the job the morning after the quake, and all county workers at Oakhill will be paid for the time they were off the job, said Judee Genetin, acting JFS director.
Clark Jones, the county’s emergency-management director, said Tablack informed him of the decisions after the decisions were made to close Oakhill and inspect it and the courthouse and administration building.
At the time, Jones said his staff was conferring with the National Weather Service concerning approaching thunderstorms.