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A former Youngstown senior prosecutor is getting $6,500 added to his severance package
YOUNGSTOWN
The board of control agreed to give $6,500 to a former senior city prosecutor — whose discrimination lawsuit eventually led to the firing of a city prosecutor — to settle a dispute over his severance package.
The board voted 2-0 Thursday to pay the money to Bassil Ally, who resigned in July 2013 and is currently an assistant prosecutor in Austin, Texas.
Law Director Martin Hume, who sits on the board, abstained as he previously had been Ally’s attorney before he was hired by Mayor John A. McNally, board chairman, to his current job in January. The other board member is Finance Director David Bozanich.
The issue was Ally didn’t receive compensation when he quit his Youngstown job for time he accumulated in excess of his regular hours, said Anthony Donofrio, deputy law director.
Ally’s initial claim was for more than $12,000 and he threatened to sue the city, Donofrio said. The city was able to negotiate a $6,500 settlement, Donofrio said.
When Ally quit in July 2013, the board of control paid him a $12,907 severance package for unusued sick and vacation time.
Ally, a Muslim, filed a civil lawsuit in May 2009 against the city contending he was harassed by co-workers because of his faith and Middle Eastern descent.
A settlement, reached in October 2011, increased his base pay by $4,000 a year to $65,200, and gave him a $110,000 lump-sum payment. He was also promoted from assistant prosecutor to senior prosecutor.
The fallout from that settlement and a subsequent internal investigation led then-Mayor Charles Sammarone to fire Prosecutor Jay Macejko and Bret Hartup, an assistant city prosecutor, in April 2012.
Among the evidence in the investigation was an April 2009 text message on Hartup’s cellphone supposedly sent by Macejko that made derogatory references to President Barack Obama. Macejko insisted he never sent the text.
In other business Thursday, the board:
Agreed to pay $27,335 to A.P. O’Horo, a Liberty contracting company, for emergency demolition work to 787 Wick Ave., the former location of Heart Reach Ministries.
A previous company had partially demolished the structure and left it, resulting in a collapse of another part of the building, said Abigail Brubaker, code enforcement and blight remediation superintendent.
Ratified a three-year contract Thursday with the city’s 74-member wastewater employees union. The deal includes a 1 percent raise now, a 1.5 percent raise July 1, 2015, and another 1 percent raise July 1, 2016.