Youngstown gives $20,000 to a nonprofit for exterior improvements

Youngstown gives $20,000 to a nonprofit for exterior improvements

Youngstown gives $20,000 to a nonprofit for exterior improvements

City OKs $20K for group to establish South Side small-business incubator

YOUNGSTOWN

The board of control agreed to provide $20,000 in city funds to a nonprofit organization that plans to convert a vacant building on the South Side into a small-business incubator.

The money to Oak Hill Collaborative Inc. will go toward renovating the exterior of 507 Oak Hill Ave., the former Southside Medical Center’s records building, and replacing the chain-link fence and doors, said Patrick V. Kerrigan, the nonprofit’s director and a former Youngstown Municipal Court judge.

The plan calls for $50,640 in improvements to the building’s exterior and grounds, including repairing foundation cracks, painting, replacing outdoor lighting, and landscaping. About $200,000 in improvements will be made to the building, Kerrigan said.

Kerrigan is a former 10-year municipal court judge who was sentenced in 1998 to 30 months in federal prison for three counts of affecting interstate commerce by extortion — accepting a trip to Florida from health care providers, accepting $400 not due to him or his office, and obtaining $250 and property, lumber and building materials not due him or his office. He participated in a Florida patient-brokering scheme that included six others, who all pleaded guilty.

Kerrigan served 13 months in a federal prison and then five months at Community Corrections Association, a halfway house on Market Street in Youngstown.

When asked if it is appropriate for the city to give money to a convicted felon, Kerrigan said, “The city is giving it to a nonprofit corporation that’s investing 10 times that amount in the building and working to redevelop the South Side of Youngstown.”

He added that the city doesn’t “check criminal records” of those seeking grants.

“For 10 years, I’ve been doing this for free,” he said. “I have a proven track record of success. I’m doing what the city has failed to do — work to revitalize the Oak Hill neighborhood.”