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Trustees to consider chamber membership
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Austintown Trustee Lisa Oles
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Austintown Trustee David Ditzler
By Elise Franco
AUSTINTOWN
The board of trustees is on the fence about continuing its membership with the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.
David Betras, Mahoning County Democratic Party chairman, stopped by the trustees’ Monday meeting and urged the board to reconsider its membership with the chamber, which has endorsed Senate Bill 5.
The trustees voted in February to oppose the bill, which limits the collective-bargaining rights for public employees.
Betras said the trustees should take into account the chamber’s decision to take a political side.
“I don’t want to hear the business that they’re a private nonprofit. ... They’re assigned the role of primary economic-development agency,” he said. “How about some simple understanding, and stay neutral.”
Trustee Lisa Oles said she felt the board should have withdrawn its membership years ago when the chamber proposed a Joint Economic Development District with Youngstown. “It is what it is,” she said. “I wish in the future, the chamber will stay better focused.”
In March, Tony Paglia, vice president of government affairs for the chamber, issued a statement, calling SB 5 “a common-sense approach that gives state and local government the flexibility and tools to properly and efficiently manage their dwindling resources and continue to provide services to the public without having to raise taxes considerably.”
Trustee David Ditzler said the board will continue to oppose SB 5 while continuing to work with its unions.
Betras said during his speech to the trustees that the chamber’s reputation with labor unions won’t ever be the same. “Their relationship with laborers is forever ruined,” he said. “Is this something [the board] should be a part of?”
“At this point, I’m leaning toward wanting to withdraw,” Ditzler said. “I don’t want to act too hastily.”