Commissioners meet to discuss port authority board

May 9, 2014 at 12:02a.m.

WARREN

Mahoning and Trumbull county commissioners will discuss the fate of the Western Reserve Port Authority board when they meet jointly at noon today in the Trumbull commissioners’ office.

“My desire is to dissolve the port-authority board and to continue the programs that the staff is working on under the guidance of an adjacent port authority,” that of Columbiana County, for a month, until a consultant’s report on the WRPA’s function is completed and the commissioners of the two counties redesign the authority’s governance, said David Ditzler, chairman of the Mahoning County commissioners.

The commissioners make the appointments to the eight-member board — four from Mahoning and four from Trumbull.

“There’s no director there. Rose DeLeon left. They didn’t name Sarah [Lown] as an interim” director, Ditzler observed. “There’s another void that needs filled, and that should be addressed in the restructuring of the port authority.”

Lown is the senior economic development manager for the authority, which oversees operation of Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna and promotes local economic-development projects.

“I see personality conflicts,” Ditzler added. “I see no cohesiveness within that board to try and create economic development; and the Mahoning County taxpayers, through our [hotel] bed tax, are giving $1.1 million a year to that port authority.

“There are just too many important projects that are potentially out there and that they’re working on that are at a standstill,” he added.