Congressman Ryan believes port authority’s economic development team finally ready for action

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, says he has great hope for the work Anthony Trevena will do in the Mahoning Valley as new economic development director for the Western Reserve Port Authority.

“With the current team we have in place, I’m excited with what’s going on,” Ryan said recently.

“I worked very closely with Anthony Trevena when he worked for Congressman John Boccieri’s office. I don’t know how we would be able to find a more intelligent, savvy and experienced economic development director than him. He’s just a phenomenal young guy. I think it was a brilliant move to hire him.”

Ryan said he also is really impressed with the quality of the people who now serve on the eight-member port authority board, which had much turnover a year ago after infighting among board members caused turmoil.

“There are really great people on the board – Sam Covelli [president and CEO of Covelli Enterprises] and Ron Klingle [CEO of Avalon Holdings] are people who have had a great deal of success in the private sector. It’s a great team, including John Boccieri,” a former U.S. representative.

Ryan, who was the impetus behind the port authority’s expanding its economic-development capabilities through the hiring of Rose Ann DeLeon to be its first economic development director in 2009, said the position has underachieved so far because of the extraordinary personal setbacks experienced by DeLeon and her husband, Jose.

Jose DeLeon, died in January 2010, two months after Rose Ann was hired. She also battled cancer through much of her time on the job and died in March 2015.

“Her personal situation was very difficult,” Ryan said. “She was like not there the whole time.”

It concerned him because the results were not as hoped, despite DeLeon’s having an excellent background from her previous employment with the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority.

Trumbull County Commissioner Dan Polivka commented last week that he knows Trevena and called him a “sharp guy, but for what [Trumbull and Mahoning counties] are paying out [in bed taxes], they need to start delivering.”

Of the port authority’s 2015 budget of $4.3 million, about $1.5 million came from hotel-motel taxes from Mahoning and Trumbull counties – $1.1 million from Mahoning County and $450,000 from Trumbull County. Of the $4.3 million, $2.8 million is budgeted for operation of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.

Mahoning County’s share of the bed taxes increased from $642,000 in 2012 to $1.1 million in 2013, after the county commissioners increased the county’s bed tax. Trumbull County’s share of the bed taxes increased from $341,000 in 2011 to $434,000 in 2012, when the county commissioners raised that bed tax.

In addition to hotel-motel taxes, the airport also takes in revenue from parking and hangar rental fees, among other things.

Fellow Trumbull County Commissioner Mauro Cantalamessa said of Trevena: “It’s hard to argue with his resume” and said the commissioners would not “micromanage the port authority, but we’re going to hold Mr. Trevena to a high standard.”

Mahoning County Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said the county commissioners “have said from Day 1 that accountability is key,” meaning the port authority must produce economic-development results “because of the amount of money going to the port authority.”

Mahoning Commissioner David Ditzler and Trumbull Commissioner Paul Heltzel, who died last year, both at different times threatened to reduce the bed taxes the port authority gets as a way to express dissatisfaction with the board’s actions.

The Trumbull County commissioners did, in fact, follow through with the threat and reduced bed-tax contributions in 2012 but later restored it.

But Traficanti said he believes this would be the wrong time to threaten to cut funds to the port authority because of concerns that the Youngstown Air Reserve Station could be considered for closure by the federal government in the next base realignment and closure (BRAC) process.

The air base uses the regional airport’s runways and other airport facilities.

Ditzler said officials will “monitor” the port authority’s economic-development efforts, but future threats to withhold funding might be counterproductive.

“You have to understand that we couldn’t create a different arm for economic development,” Ditzler said. The commissioners either turn over the bed-tax money to the port authority to use for economic development and airport operations or not collect it at all.

Ditzler said he was unhappy that the board chose Moliterno to be executive director because he believed Moliterno would serve only as interim executive director.

But with the port authority’s strategic plan and director in place, “we need to make sure they implement the plan and accomplish some things.”

In an interview, Moliterno acknowledged he may not be finished hiring economic development staffing. Moliterno said he is talking with Tracy Drake, who leaves at the end of September as CEO of the Columbiana County Port Authority, about Drake’s assisting the Western Reserve Port Authority. Drake earns a base salary of $200,000 annually in Columbiana County.