43
Officials appoint 7 to serve on new board
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County commissioners have appointed seven people to serve on the new Trumbull County Transit Board, which will run a countywide transportation service starting Jan. 1.
James G. Floyd, a member of the Western Reserve Port Authority, which runs the Youngstown-Warren Regional airport, will be the board’s chairman. Floyd, of Warren, has worked as an attorney for 39 years, specializing in banking, finance and real estate, commercial litigation and bankruptcy.
He has also assisted Youngstown in its negotiations with the management companies at the Covelli Centre and has provided volunteer assistance to Warren in trying to secure private management for Packard Music Hall.
Floyd and Robert L. Faulkner of Warren will serve three-year terms.
Faulkner, of Warren, has served as a member of the board of education of Warren City Schools for the past 15 years and was chairman of the 2010 levy campaign that resulted in renewal of the countywide senior-citizens levy. Faulkner was manager of community relations for Delphi Packard Electric from 1971 to 2001.
Glenn Holmes, mayor of McDonald since 2008 and a substation inspector for Ohio Edison since 1982, was appointed to a two-year term. And Jeanne Hendrickson of Warren, a longtime travel agent, was appointed to a one-year term.
Commissioners insisted that Democrats and Republicans be represented on the transit board and appointed three Republicans in addition to Floyd, Faulkner, Holmes and Hendrickson, who are Democrats.
The only three Republicans who expressed an interest in serving on the board were appointed.
They are Earl T. Brown of Warren, who has worked in the trucking industry (three-year term); Theodore Mansfield of Cortland, who served as maintenance manager for the U.S. Naval Station at Newport, R.I. from 2008 to June 2011 (two-year term); and Lisa Ramsey of Champion Township, an employee of the Trumbull County Planning Commission (one-year term).
Niles Mayor Ralph Infante was appointed to a one-year term as a nonvoting advisory member.
Commissioner Frank Fuda said the assistance of Infante and Mark Hess, Niles grant and development coordinator, will be important to the board as it takes over the service that has been run by the city of Niles since 2001.
Infante announced early this year that Niles would no longer operate Niles-Trumbull Transit as of Dec. 31. The service receives $635,000 from the countywide senior-services levy to provide senior-citizen transportation.
County voters will be asked this November to pass a 0.5-mill levy that would fund the new transportation service. It would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $17.50 per year.