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mahoning county TB-control levy to go on Nov. 6 ballot for renewal
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County commissioners have passed a resolution to place a .1-mill, five-year tuberculosis-prevention and control levy on the Nov. 6 ballot for renewal.
The countywide real-estate tax levy raises about $176,540 a year and costs the owner of a $100,000 home $1.20 a year.
The levy, first enacted in 1976, funds a TB clinic at 496 Glenwood Ave., whose staff conducts screenings, including on-campus screening of Youngstown State University students.
“Historically, more humans have died from tuberculosis than all other diseases put together,” said Dr. John Venglarcik, medical director of the county board of health and TB clinic. Mahoning County had 13 cases of the disease last year, he told the commissioners Thursday.
The clinic did 2,300 TB screenings last year, said Diana Colaianni, nursing director at the county health department, which operates the clinic.
Every undiagnosed person with an active TB case typically infects eight others, Dr. Venglarcik said.
“Every person that we pick up in the latent [asymptomatic carrier] stage of tuberculosis, before they get to active tuberculosis, we save all that grief and hardship” by diagnosing and treating that person with antibiotics, Dr. Venglarcik said.
In other action, the commissioners awarded $1,437,530 worth of contracts for resurfacing 13 miles of county roads.
The larger of the two contracts was a $1,343,558 agreement with Shelly and Sands Inc. of Akron for the majority of the work. That work will be on portions of Glenwood Avenue and Kirk, Hopkins, McGuffey, Grandview, Raccoon, Dobbins, South Range and Beard roads.
The smaller $93,972 contract for resurfacing and bridge repair on New Buffalo Road west of state Route 46 in Beaver Township went to the Shelly Co. of Twinsburg.
The commissioners also awarded a $214,249 contract to Hughes Contracting Inc. of Mogadore for liquid asphalt and stone aggregate surface treatment of a total of 4.38 miles of roads, divided among County Line, Beaver-Springfield, State Line, Coit and Silica roads.
Marilyn Kenner, chief deputy county engineer, told the commissioners her office is studying whether to convert the intersection of Unity and Middletown roads in Springfield Township, where a fatal accident occurred recently, from a two-way stop for motorists on Middletown Road to a four-way-stop intersection.
The commissioners also approved a $619,105 engineering service agreement with MS Consultants of Youngstown, which is part of a $3.9 million project to eliminate the overflow of sewage from the county-owned Campbell waste- treatment plant into the Mahoning River during heavy rains.
In addition, the commissioners approved a 60 percent, 10-year real- estate tax abatement for a 10,500-square-foot, $600,000 to $800,000 addition to double the size of the Advanced Recycling Systems Inc. plant at 4000 McCartney Road in Coitsville Township.
The company will create eight full-time jobs over three years as part of the expansion, but local schools and governments will forgo about $1,400 annually in tax revenue during the abatement, which Coitsville Township trustees also approved Thursday.
The company now has 29 full-time employees and makes and sells sandblasting and painting equipment.