Mahoning and Trumbull partners on Western Reserve Port Authority bond over recent successes

By Ed Runyan | March 25, 2016 at 12:00a.m.

VIENNA

The three Mahoning and three Trumbull county commissioners got to meet the newest Western Reserve Port Authority board member, tour the renovated terminal at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport and celebrate recent accomplishments.

It was a Thursday lunch to bring together the funding partners for the port authority and give them an update on the evolving authority’s activities, said John Moliterno, authority executive director.

“It’s been a big change,” Moliterno said of the cosmetic improvements to the terminal – the addition of decorative columns, signage and paint on the front of the terminal, and painting, lighting and flooring on the inside.

Those upgrades, expected to be finished in about a week, will give the terminal a modern look, officials said. More travelers will be using the facility when flights between the airport and Chicago O’Hare International begin in May.

But just as important are increased business deals the port authority’s expanded economic-development team have engineered recently.

“We’ve done more deals in the last three weeks than in the past seven years,” Moliterno said of the time period since the port authority hired its first full-time economic-development staff member.

“Coming in here, it’s good to see the parking lot three-quarters full,” observed Trumbull County Commissioner Dan Polivka, who took a picture of it as proof for people who have not been to the facility in a while. It has much more parking than it had a few years ago, but the price for using the parking is among the lowest anywhere, officials say.

“With the new board, new administration, everyone has a mission to make this the best airport in the area,” Mahoning County Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said.

The agenda for the get-together was light – salads, sandwiches, conversation among members of the three boards and Col. James Dignan, commander of the 710th Airlift Wing at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station, and meeting new port authority board member Kathleen Kennedy.

“I’m very excited,” said Kennedy, a mortgage-loan officer at Home Savings and Loan and apparently the first female appointee in 20 years. She recently was selected to fill the fourth Mahoning County position on the board.

She gives the board a financial professional – a void on the board since Rick Schiraldi left last year.