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ACTION plans seek to strengthen Valley
YOUNGSTOWN
An alliance of church congregations outlined what has been done and what should be done to help the Mahoning Valley.
The Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing Our Neighborhoods, or ACTION, invited the public to a meeting Thursday evening at St. Patrick Church on Oakhill Avenue. About 200 people attended to hear speakers that included city and schools officials, politicians and pitches for entities such as WRTA public transportation and Youngstown Schools Early College.
ACTION is a “multi-faith-based organization that identifies a wide range of social injustices and inequalities,” said Patrick Kerrigan of St. Patrick’s.
“We organize stakeholders and interested citizens to take action,” he continued. “The purpose of ACTION is action.”
Issues that speakers touched on included employment, education and the quality of life in the Valley.
James Hall of St. Michael Church in Canfield congratulated Eastern Gateway Community College for being named one of the top five community colleges in Ohio.
EGCC Executive Vice President Jim Baber said the college would accept ACTION’s call to find undereducated, unskilled people in the community and prepare them for jobs.
“We know many students are underprepared to do college-level work,” Baber said. “We take them at where they are and take them where they want to go.”
Jim Converse, who spoke on behalf of WRTA, said public transportation is critical for a strong regional economy.
WRTA Director Jim Ferraro said the transit system has “come a long way, getting people to job sites from 6 a.m. to midnight.”
He said senior citizens and disabled people rely on the buses, and he asked the crowd to support Issue 3, a renewal levy for WRTA on the ballot in November.
Mahoning County Commissioner John McNally also asked for the crowd’s support in voting for renewal levies for the Children Services Board and the control of tuberculosis in the community. The levies have been in place for many years, he said.
Jamal Tito Brown, president of Youngstown City Council, said a vote for a renewal levy for the city schools will be an investment in the future of students such as John Copeland, who will graduate from the schools in 2014 but said he has had a successful landscaping business for six years and has been in the schools’ Early College program since the ninth grade.
Schools Superintendent Connie Hathorn said the schools will discuss a plan for a strategy to get parents more involved in the schools.
Parental involvement, or lack of it, is also a concern that affects the quality of life in the community, said Jim Little of ACTION, who called on Youngstown Police Chief Rod Foley to make parents more accountable for truancy in the schools.
A program to allow residents and businesses to take down blighted homes will also help alleviate crime, said the Rev. Mr. Edward Noga, ACTION vice president.
And state Sen. Joe Schiavoni of Boardman, D-33rd, said he would do what he could to help prepare people for a more expensive and computerized GED test.