Youngstown lawmakers want to hire city planner, park boss

By David Skolnick | March 11, 2011 at 12:08a.m.

DeMaine Kitchen

YOUNGSTOWN

Despite yet another tight city budget, members of city council want Youngstown to hire a chief planner and a park and recreation director.

With the city administration expecting the 2011 general-fund budget to end the year with a $50,000 surplus, the money isn’t there to fill the positions.

Between salary and benefits, the two hires would cost the city about $180,000 annually, city officials say.

“The money [to fund the two positions] is just a matter of reallocating what we have,” said Councilman DeMaine Kitchen, D-2nd, vice chairman of council’s finance committee.

When asked what to cut to have the money for the two positions, he said, “I can’t point out specifically.”

Kitchen said he’d be able to answer that question after council’s finance committee has its last budget hearing in a few weeks.

The first budget hearings were Wednesday and Thursday.

“We need to see the totality” of the budget before decisions can be made, Kitchen said. “It’s too early to tell.”

Council must approve the 2011 budget by March 31.

Councilman Paul Drennen, D-5th, finance- committee member, said council members need to look at the entire budget before deciding how to find money to hire a chief planner and park and recreation director.

Councilman Jamael Tito Brown, D-3rd, finance- committee chairman, said he wants to look at money the city spends on “professional services.” That is money the city spends for outside consultants who work on behalf of the city.

Members of council say the city needs a chief planner and director of park and recreation.

“These two jobs are priorities,” Drennen said.

The city has been without a chief planner for about two years after Anthony Kobak, who had the job, resigned.

The work has fallen to the city’s community development agency and planning commission.

The responsibilities of the job include developing and implementing neighborhood plans with community organizations and groups as well as city officials, said Bill D’Avignon, CDA director. D’Avignon, who also runs the city’s planning department, has done this work since Kobak left.

Because of his other duties and a decreased staff, D’Avignon said he isn’t able to devote the time needed to properly do the chief-planner job.

Jason Whitehead, the mayor’s chief of staff, has served as park and recreation director for nearly four years without an increase in his $74,187 annual salary.

Whitehead said there’s no need to fill the position on a permanent basis, particularly given the city’s financial problems the past few years.

But council members say the city needs someone doing the job with the sole focus of providing recreational services to children.

Kyle Miasek, deputy finance director, said, “We don’t have the ability in the current economic situation to fund all hiring requests.”