Move to Oakhill to be in summer

January 14, 2011 at 12:03a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

The Mahoning County Board of Elections won’t be able to move from the county’s South Side Annex to Oakhill Renaissance Place until June or July, said Joyce Kale-Pesta, the board’s deputy director.

That’s based on the estimate by Pete Triveri, county facilities director, that the space being renovated for the board of elections will be available for occupancy 10 to 12 weeks from now.

Given that timetable and the increased activity as the May election approaches, the board won’t be able to move until summer, Kale-Pesta explained.

Kale-Pesta told the building commission Thursday the auditorium, known as the Renaissance Conference Center, is ideal for conducting poll-worker training sessions, but parking will be a problem at peak periods.

George J. Tablack, county administrator, asked why parking would be a problem when the Oakhill campus has 400 employee-parking spaces in its parking deck and 500 surface-parking spaces.

Kale-Pesta explained that Oakhill’s parking lot configuration is such that buses will be needed during peak poll-worker training and voting periods, including early voting, to shuttle people from Oakhill’s remote parking areas to the elections board area.

Many poll workers are elderly or physically disabled, and some of them cannot easily walk long distances, she noted.

Early voting occurs in person and by mail beginning 35 days before each primary and general election day. “We voted 1,000 people at the counter a day during the presidential election” of 2008, Kale-Pesta said.

Earlier in the meeting, commission members and their architects discussed the concerns raised by Elections Director Tom McCabe about what he said were shortcomings of the board’s new Oakhill quarters, including an inadequate parking configuration and short customer-service counters.

“We ought to get this straightened out with him, and, if he needs more space, tell us how much more,” said John Logue, commission chairman.

Architect Ray Jaminet said he and his assistants should have been fully informed of the board’s needs when his firm initially drew up plans for the new space.

“If you tell me what you need, I can make that work. ...The client has to tell the architect what they need,” he said, noting that he hasn’t had any problems like this pertaining to any other Oakhill occupant.

Kale-Pesta said elections workers find that their space at the annex, where they enjoy a 75-foot-long permanent counter, suits their needs “very well,” but “we will go where the [county] commissioners provide us space.”

At Oakhill, plans call for the elections board to have two 6-foot-long counters in regular use in its office, with additional temporary counters to be set up in the lobby for voting periods, she said.

The building commission will further discuss the election board’s needs at its meeting at 8:30 a.m. next Thursday at the Oak-hill auditorium.