Committee established to create South Avenue Business Association

January 22, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Business owners from the South Avenue corridor are engaged to develop a new entity to represent their concerns.

A steering committee was formed to develop a South Avenue Business Association during a meeting Wednesday at the Metro Assembly of God church. The meeting was called by the South Avenue Area Neighborhood Development Initiative, which was formed in 2009 to improve the corridor.

BJ Duckworth, a manager at Coca-Cola Refreshments and SAANDI board member, said it’s important to have a separate entity to represent the area’s business community.

“We want to be our own sustainable group,” he said. “We want this to be more organizational.”

Additionally, city Councilman John R. Swierz, D-7th, said it was SAANDI’s goal to create a business association to bring awareness of business concerns to the city.

“We can’t do things if we don’t know about them,” he said.

Duckworth will coordinate the steering committee, which includes Tracy L. Jordan of Happy Campers Learning Center; Joe Rafidi of Rafidi Insurance; Bob Deagan of Valley Awning, Tent & Trap; Gina Melfi of Step It Up Rentals; and Dave Turner of FirstEnergy.

Issues with crime and beautification were discussed by business owners at the meeting.

“I think we need to get more lighting,” said the Rev. Al Yanno Jr., pastor of Metro Assembly and chairman of SAANDI.

As guest speaker at the meeting, Turner outlined the ways customers can reach out to the energy company to report outages, obtain information and how to seek improvements.

“We’ll continue to work with the city,” he said.