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Team eagerly awaits its move to Oakhill
YOUNGSTOWN
Leaders of the Mahoning County recycling division said they eagerly await next week’s move of their offices from the second floor of the county’s South Side Annex to the third-floor northwest wing of Oakhill Renaissance Place.
Carney-McNicholas Inc. of Austintown will move the recycling division, known as the Green Team, on Tuesday.
In addition to having office space on the third floor, the 11-member Green Team staff will have basement storage for its recycling bins at Oakhill.
The move will be a morale- and comfort-booster for the staff, said Mari Wren-Petrony, Green Team assistant director. “This is a Taj Mahal to us,” she said of the Oakhill quarters.
In the new brown- carpeted quarters, every office will have a window, she said, adding that only her office and that of Jim Petuch, team director, have windows at the South Side Annex, 2801 Market St., which is a former department store.
Petuch said tattered carpeting was repaired with duct tape at the recycling division’s quarters in the annex.
Wren-Petrony also said the Green Team’s newly renovated quarters at Oakhill will be centrally and conveniently located with other county agencies.
Oakhill Renaissance Place, 345 Oak Hill Ave., is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center, which the county bought in 2006.
The Green Team will be joining the county coroner’s office, Department of Job and Family Services and Veterans’ Service Commission at Oakhill.
Also at Oakhill are the city health department and the Mahoning-Youngstown Community Action Partnership.
The county board of elections is to move this summer from the annex to renovated quarters on Oakhill’s first floor.
Also in the county’s Tuesday solid-waste policy committee meeting, Jennifer Jones, Youngstown’s litter control and recycling coordinator, announced that she recently had issued a purchase order for 14 cameras to detect and identify those who illegally dump waste in the city.
“We’re hoping to start catching some of these people so that it can be used as a deterrent, so we’re not cleaning up so many dump sites every single day,” she said.
With a $2.7 million annual budget coming from landfill dumping fees and state and federal grants, the Green Team oversees the county’s curbside recycling program and 37 recycling drop-off sites.
It also educates school children and community group members about recycling, funds the recycling programs of the city and Youngstown State University and sponsors household appliance, electronic appliance, tire and household hazardous waste recycling drives.