Firefighters battle 2 vacant house fires

October 1, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Firefighters battled two vacant house fires within minutes of each other late Tuesday and early Wednesday on different sides of town.

Reports said a home at 37 N. Pearl St. on the East Side was destroyed. The first crews on the scene at about 11:45 p.m. Tuesday found the home fully involved in flames. Damage is listed at $2,500.

At about 12:25 a.m. Wednesday, crews were called to a fire at a vacant home at 1012 Ridge Ave. on the South Side, where flames were coming through the roof. Damage is listed at $1,000.

There were no injuries in either blaze. The cause of both fires is under investigation.

Brown announces federal funding

WARREN

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Cleveland, D-Ohio, this week announced $632,472 in federal funding for Family and Community Services Inc. to provide an average of 20 beds for homeless veterans to help increase housing stabilization in Warren.

Brown, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, said the funding comes from the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Grant Per Diem program, which gives grants to community agencies that provide transitional housing with supportive services for homeless veterans using the Transition in Place model, which encourages rapid movement of veterans from transitional housing to permanent housing to help veterans live independently.

Drug arrest

CAMPBELL

A traffic stop Monday evening led to an arrest of a Youngstown man on charges of possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia.

Police stopped Casey Jackson, 22, near Jackson Street for improper license plates, according to a police report. Jackson voluntarily gave up 1.2 grams of suspected marijuana, and police found an additional 0.6 grams of suspected marijuana in the vehicle, the report states. Jackson will be arraigned Friday in Campbell Municipal Court.

Office dismissed from lawsuits

WARREN

The Trumbull County Engineer’s Office has been dismissed from lawsuits filed by family members of teens who died in a car accident on Niles-Warren River Road just south of Warren in 2013. Lawsuits filed by the administrators of the estates of Dylan Ray, 15; Kirklan Behner, 15; Andrique Bennett, 14; and Brandon A. Murray, 14, originally named the county engineer’s office, as well as the city of Warren and the county commissioners, as defendants. The lawsuit alleged the car hit a “sunken and inadequately cared for” guardrail before flipping over and into a pond.

“The allegation that the [county] engineer was negligent in maintaining the road or guardrail will not be a subject of the lawsuit,” a news release from Engineer Randy Smith says.

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