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Senator: Struthers BMV closing hard to stop
By Jeanne Starmack
STRUTHERS
The closing of the Bureau of Motor Vehicles license center in the Fifth Street Plaza will be difficult to stop, said state Sen. Joe Schiavoni, D-33rd.
Schiavoni came to Wednesday’s city council meeting to give an update on what he knows about the closing of the center, which has angered residents and officials who want it to stay.
The center’s last day is June 26. The deputy registrar there, Terry Farmer, did not win a contract renewal from the state. The contract for the Struthers center was awarded to a deputy registrar, Roberta Gibson from Hubbard. Gibson is closing the Hubbard center and is moving to a plaza near the Giant Eagle on U.S. Route 224 in Poland Township.
The Bureau of Motor Vehicles, under the Ohio Department of Public Safety, said the reason Farmer did not win the contract is because the center doesn’t have a credit-card machine.
A department spokeswoman said Gibson tried to renew the lease at the Fifth Street Plaza but could not. The spokeswoman said Gibson tried to find other locations in Struthers but could not. A spokesman for the Cafaro Co., which owns the plaza, told The Vindicator last week that Gibson did not call to ask about leasing the space.
Schiavoni said he spoke with the director of the department of public safety, Cathy Collins-Taylor, and the registrar, Carolyn Williams.
He was told the contract is awarded, but the decision has to be “signed off” by Taylor and Williams.
Schiavoni said he spoke to Gibson and told her that “no one from Struthers would come to Poland.”
“She said she called about that same place and was told there was no vacancy,” he said. He said Gibson also told him she checked into locations at and near the WIC office on Bridge Street but couldn’t get those spots either. She has signed a lease in Poland Township.
Schiavoni said he asked Gibson if she would at least keep the same nine workers who will otherwise lose their jobs when the plaza center closes.
Gibson told him she’s bringing her workers from the Hubbard center, he said.
City officials and residents have said they don’t want to lose the convenience of having the center at the plaza, where it’s been for 18 years.
There will be a rally to save the center at SClBSClB12:30 p.m. Saturday in the plaza parking lot.
City council plans to present a resolution that supports keeping the center at the plaza, along with a petition that so far has 3,223 names on it, to the governor’s office after the rally.