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Official defends decision to close
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning County’s emergency-management director said he acted with common sense when he decided to close the county’s offices and buildings due to a Tuesday ice-storm forecast.
Clark Jones, EMA director, said he called county Administrator George J. Tablack at 6:32 a.m. and left him a message concerning the adverse weather conditions before he called the media about 6:45 a.m. to inform them of the closing.
“That was my decision based on the information that I had in hand,” Jones said Thursday. “We have to find a way to orchestrate this at a reasonable time because we have a number of offices that start work at 7 o’clock.”
Tablack said he was able to speak to Jones at 6:59 a.m., but that was after the closing already had been broadcast.
A June 2001 resolution of the county commissioners authorizes the county administrator to act in place of the commissioners in approving weather-related closings of county facilities.
“It was a bad morning,” Jones said. “Even the National Weather Service was iffy. Which way is this storm going to go? One change in the latitude of that storm could have made the effect even more dangerous,” Jones said.
When such decisions have to be made in the future, Jones said: “I will proceed as my bosses tell me to do.” Jones is under the authority of the county commissioners and administrator.
Probate Judge Mark Belinky, presiding judge of the county common pleas court, said he would send the commissioners a written memorandum expressing the judges’ point of view after he discusses emergency closings with his colleagues in a judges’ meeting Monday.
“We just want to be included in the dialogue,” Judge Scott Hunter, presiding judge of the area courts, told the commissioners during their staff meeting. Judge Hunter noted that court closings can result in dismissals of criminal charges if timely hearings don’t take place.
Judge Hunter noted that his colleague, Judge Joseph Houser, learned at 8:20 a.m. that all area courts were closed, after he and a prosecutor already had arrived for work at Boardman court.
“You’ve got to keep the commissioners in the loop, and I don’t mind if that’s through the county administrator,” said John A. McNally IV, chairman of the county commissioners. “There has to be communication to at least the chair of the commissioners.”
“We need to redefine the whole plan,” said Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti.
“I want to make sure that whatever apparatus we amend and set in place, that it’s unambiguous,” Tablack said.
McNally said he would refer questions about county-employee compensation for time lost due to emergency closings to the county prosecutor’s office.
In previous years, when the county closed due to a weather emergency, all county employees got paid for lost work on the day the offices were closed, said Carol McFall, chief deputy county auditor.
Those employees previously were not forced to make up that time through vacation, personal days or flex time, McFall added.