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Regional chamber position puzzles Mahoning County officials
YOUNGSTOWN
The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber has issued a news release saying its board has endorsed renewal of Mahoning County’s half-percent sales tax, but county officials are puzzled by the chamber’s silence on the additional quarter-percent sales tax contained in Issue 1.
The chamber said that without the tax renewal, county government “would come nearly to a screeching halt.”
The chamber’s news release, however, was silent on the extra quarter percent that is in the combined renewal and additional tax question appearing on the Nov. 4 ballot.
“The board did not take a position on adding a quarter percent,” said Guy C. Coviello, the chamber’s vice president of government affairs and media.
If passed, the entire three quarters of a percent would raise about $24 million a year, exclusively for the sheriff’s, prosecutor’s, and coroner’s offices and 911 emergency dispatching center.
“I’m not sure what they mean by their [press release] because the entire issue is one issue,” Sheriff Jerry Greene said of the chamber.
The full three quarters of a percent is needed to compensate for losses in recent years to the county’s general fund in state money and investment income, the sheriff said.
“It’s filling a hole,” he said.
Without the three quarters of a percent, those losses “will cause layoffs to my office in 2015,” the sheriff added.
“Issue 1 — the entire amount — is desperately needed for the criminal justice system in Mahoning County,” Greene said.
“I don’t think they really understood the full text of the levy,” Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti said of the chamber release.
“It’s one resolution. It’s one issue, and we presented that to them at their meeting,” Righetti said.
“What they’re doing here does not make any sense,” Righetti said. “They never really talked to us to give us any feedback.”
County officials made their presentation to the chamber’s board concerning the tax, and chamber members asked some factual clarification questions, but did not give their opinions to county officials, she said.
The county officials who gave the presentation were not present for the board’s discussion and vote, Righetti said.
“They should have come to us prior to the news release to a staff meeting and asked us questions so we could make them understand what this was all about,” Righetti said.
“We need the jail. We need to be able to process these cases through the court system. We need the money” from the entire three quarter of a percent tax, said County Prosecutor Paul J. Gains.
“Otherwise, we’re not going to be able to prosecute these people they way they should be,” he said, referring to defendants in criminal cases.
“We’re asking the public to come forward” by supporting the sales-tax renewal and increase, he added.
“We’ve got a much-safer community than we did before, and part of it is that we’ve been able to maintain this [county] jail and keep it open,” he said.
Righetti said a sales-tax informational rally will be at 6 p.m. Monday at Grace Evangelistic Temple, 2214 Mahoning Ave.