New MYCAP leaders work to stabilize finances, restore public confidence

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Restoring financial stability and rebuilding the community’s confidence in the agency are major goals of Mahoning-Youngstown Community Action Partnership leaders as it moves forward after a year of scandal and financial troubles.

“We are going to continue to rebuild community confidence in the agency and to strengthen the board of directors,” said Jamael Tito Brown, board chairman.

“Amazing things can happen when amazing people come together,” said Marilyn J. McDaniel, new agency executive director and chief operating officer of the interim executive management team brought in last November by MYCAP to help the agency get back on its feet. And that is what happened in Youngstown, she said.

“I want to recognize the board members who stayed during this difficult time and dug in and did the hard work that resulted in the state-imposed risk status being removed. Some agencies take years to come out of risk status; MYCAP did in about a year,” she said.

Also, McDaniel and David N. Waggoner, the agency’s new fiscal director, said MYCAP has a strong staff that knows what it is doing and made sure services continued to be provided even while carrying the burden of the reputation of the agency being damaged and receiving criticism from the community.

The Youngstown-based MYCAP administers 11 programs in Mahoning County to help poor and disadvantaged people.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.