DeLeon may not return to port authority role

VIENNA — Rose Ann DeLeon, executive director of the Western Reserve Port Authority, has been on medical leave since Jan. 16 for unspecified medical issues and may not return to the job.

She will continue to receive her medical coverage through Jan. 16, 2015, but her pay will run out after an undetermined amount of vacation and sick hours are exhausted, the port authority's chairman, James Floyd, said Wednesday.

The port authority won't be looking for a replacement right away but will consider other individuals to lead the economic-development operation during a strategic planning process that will be ongoing throughout the first half of the year.

Her assistant, Sarah Lown, will continue in her economic-development role, and Lown will be assisted by an administrative assistant and a Youngstown State University intern in the coming months.

And the port authority has reorganized its economic development committee under the leadership of new board member Ron Klingle to include six port authority members instead of four to provide additional aide, Floyd said.

DeLeon missed several months of work in 2012 following a cancer diagnosis but said last November that she was healthy.

Her contract runs through the end of this year.