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Development project secret
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County commissioners spent an hour behind closed doors during a Friday staff meeting discussing an undisclosed economic-development proposal with representatives of the Western Reserve Port Authority.
After the meeting, neither the commissioners nor WRPA personnel would discuss the nature or location of the proposed project.
“We’re looking at a project that could have a nice impact for the county and the city and the region,” said Sarah Lown, the authority’s public-finance manager.
“It involves the purchase and sale of real estate,” she told the commissioners before they went into executive session.
Having been in public session for five minutes, the commissioners went into executive session after James Fortunato, county purchasing director, urged them to do so.
Michael DiPerna, president of DiPerna Economic Development Advisors of Columbus, was with port authority staff members for the executive session, but nobody from the city’s economic-development department attended the meeting.
“It’s not a public project yet,” county Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti said after the meeting.
“It’s a concept,” said her colleague, Commissioner David Ditzler.
“It’s a concept of what they feel Youngstown and Mahoning County should look like,” Rimedio-Righetti said of the port authority’s presentation.
Rimedio-Righetti would not say whether the project would involve possible sale of county-owned real estate.
Before the executive session, John Moliterno, WRPA executive director, told the commissioners the authority had increased funding for its economic-development efforts from $150,000 last year to $300,000 this year, using the hotel bed-tax monies collected from Trumbull and Mahoning counties.
The Trumbull and Mahoning County commissioners plan a joint meeting in early February to discuss port authority matters.