Board of control reaches deals with A.P. O'Horo, private prison

YOUNGSTOWN — The city agreed to give about $63,000 to a company that operated a gravel-making facility on city-owned property without a lease or paid rent for the past seven years.

The payment, approved today by the board of control, is for about 15,000 tons of processed gravel, at a cost of about $120,000, to A.P. O’Horo offset by the company’s $40,000 purchase of a four-acre parcel owned by the city and $17,000 to settle the rent issue.

The $17,000 payment for the 14.7-acre parcel on Albert Street works out to about $2,400 a year.

Seven years ago, the city’s economic development office found the Albert Street site for O’Horo without signing a lease or collecting rent from the company, city officials say.

O’Horo crushed construction material, including concrete, at the industrial aggregate processing location.

Also, the board of control approved a lawsuit settlement with the Corrections Corporation of America, which runs the Northeast Ohio Correctional Center, a private prison on the city’s East Side over an inmate tax.

CCA will pay $300,000 a year to the city, beginning Jan. 15. Beginning in 2015, it would be reduced in half if the private prison’s inmate population goes below 1,250, and wouldn’t pay anything if it drops below 750.

For the complete story, read Saturday’s Vindicator and Vindy.com