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Officials differ on status of elections board move
YOUNGSTOWN
The director of the Mahoning County Board of Elections said he doubts work needed to relocate the agency to Oakhill Renaissance Place will be done in the coming weeks.
And that’s fine with Director Thomas McCabe, who said there’s no reason for the board to move from the South Side Annex, a building in the city’s Uptown area on Market Street that’s housed the board since 1977.
But Tracie Kaglic, the county’s project manager for Oakhill renovations, said she sees no reason for the elections board to not be at the new location by later this month or early February.
McCabe gave a tour of the election board’s Oakhill location Friday to a reporter and photographer from The Vindicator.
“I don’t think it will be done in time because there’s too much work that needs to be done,” McCabe said as he showed unfinished floors, ceilings, walls, doors and windows during the tour.
McCabe said county officials have given the board various dates, as far back as August, for relocating the board to the Oakhill location, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center on Oak Hill Avenue.
County Administrator George Tablack said the “generic target” date of the relocation always has been around the beginning of January.
Though he doesn’t have a firm date, Tablack said he should have one in two weeks.
Also Friday, Tablack insisted the county is “very close to the broad [move-in] date of around the first of the year. With construction, you have to expect contingencies. I take exception to saying there’s been a delay.”
Kaglic said Friday that ceiling tiles and carpets, along with “some very minor items,” are all that’s needed for the board’s space to be ready, and that will be done by later this month or early next month.
Meanwhile, McCabe rattled off a list of shortcomings of the Oakhill location.
McCabe complained about a lack of parking, a 10-foot front-counter space (compared to the board’s current 75-foot front counter) and limited access for people who want to vote early at the board.
Kaglic said neither McCabe nor anyone else who works for the board “ever mentioned an issue with the counter size.”
On Friday, Kaglic provided The Vindicator with a list of items the board wanted at the new location from back in June. A larger counter wasn’t included.
When told of McCabe’s concerns, Tablack said, “This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
If McCabe had issues, he should have told the county’s building commission about them months ago, Tablack said.
“It doesn’t make sense to not say something in the planning phase,” Tablack said.
Regarding the counter space, Tablack said: “If 10 feet isn’t ample space, then it’s simple: The plans can be changed.”
The voting-space location is so small, McCabe said, that the board likely would use another location — specifically mentioning the current location at the annex on Market Street and the Boardman Plaza on U.S. Route 224 as possibilities — for presidential and gubernatorial election years.
“I don’t care if we ever move, but [county officials] told us one thing, and we started to pack, and then they tell us to wait,” McCabe said. “What I saw [Friday] tells me they won’t be ready. Leave us at the annex.”
The board’s plans from June requested portable counters and two outer offices by its entrance at Oakhill for peak voting periods.
Because of the lead-up to the May primary, including early voting, the board couldn’t relocate any later than mid-February, he said. If the move isn’t finished by then, the board would have to wait till June or July to relocate, he said.
When asked what he likes about the Oakhill location, McCabe said it has more warehouse space to store voting equipment than the annex. But he added that it’s not an ideal location for voting.