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Demolition work delayed by legal action, DiPaolo says
The Vindicator (Youngstown)
Photo
The former engineering building, above, at Delphi Packard Electric will be demolished along with a manufacturing building at the company’s North River Road facilities in Howland.
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The owner of the former Delphi Packard Electric buildings on Dana and Griswold streets says he expects to begin removing asbestos-containing materials by the end of this month.
Sergio DiPaolo of Girard, who bought the buildings in January, said he’s less certain when parts of the complex will be demolished.
DiPaolo signed a consent agreement with the Ohio Attorney General’s office Friday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in which he promised to follow Ohio air-pollution laws that govern removal of asbestos-containing items.
The consent agreement was reached as part of a lawsuit the AG’s office filed in September against DiPaolo and two DiPaolo companies.
The suit alleged that DiPaolo failed to carry out demolitions properly in Newton Falls and Boardman in 2005 and 2007.
But because those demolitions were completed several years ago, last week’s consent agreement pertains more to the Warren buildings than the Newton Falls and Boardman buildings, said Thad Driscoll, an assistant attorney general.
“It applies to Delphi and any projects he works on in the future,” Driscoll said.
DiPaolo said he submitted an asbestos survey to the Mahoning Trumbull Air Pollution Control Agency in Youngstown in February that identified the asbestos-containing items he wanted to remove from the structures.
Tara Cioffi, sanitarian in charge of the agency, was not available to comment Tuesday.
DiPaolo said he would be having the asbestos- containing items removed by now if not for the stop-work order Warren building official Chris Taneyhill filed against him in January and the criminal charges Taneyhill filed against DiPaolo and three employees in February.
DiPaolo said he and Taneyhill disagree on whether the work he and his workers have done inside the building on the north side of Dana Street — removing salvageable items such as wiring and overhead power-supply systems — requires a permit.
“What we were doing was not demolition. It was not part of the structure,” DiPaolo said, adding that Taneyhill issued a stop-work order and filed criminal charges “just to cause problems.”
DiPaolo said companies such as his “never need a permit” to remove salvage because “it’s not part of the structure.”
DiPaolo said he was not required to have a permit to remove the fixtures and equipment from a former factory in Champion not long ago. He said he also has been informed that fixtures were removed from other industrial sites on the north side of Warren in recent years with no permit.
Taneyhill, conversely, says electrical components that required a permit to install — such as the overhead power-supply systems — require a permit to remove them.
Taneyhill said he doesn’t believe DiPaolo’s comments about salvage items’ being taken out of other Warren manufacturing facilities without a permit are true.