Tito Brown declines to request Vigorito firing after attorney's advice

YOUNGSTOWN

Jamael Tito Brown, a Mahoning Valley Sanitary District board member and Youngstown mayoral candidate, wanted an MVSD manager fired for being indicted on six felonies.

But Brown said he backed away from his request after hearing from Tom Wilson, MVSD’s attorney, in a closed-door board meeting last week.

On Wednesday, Brown provided The Vindicator with a copy of a letter he sent last week to Wilson and the rest of the four-man MVSD board.

Brown emailed it to Wilson and the rest of the board just before the board met March 29 and voted to place Anthony P. Vigorito, its plant operations manager, on paid administrative leave.

In the letter, Brown wrote that “it was alarming” to read an article about Vigorito’s indictment in the newspaper and that the MVSD manager “should be terminated immediately for this egregious act. If there is not a consensus to terminate him immediately, at the very least, he should be placed on unpaid administrative leave. He should then be advised that with any criminal plea, he would be terminated.”

But at the meeting, Brown never mentioned either option and voted with the rest of the board to put Vigorito on paid administrative leave.

Vigorito of Niles, 41, is paid $77,000 a year. That amount is being reduced by $320 a month because the state suspended his Class III license as a result of his indictment.

When asked Wednesday why he didn’t say anything at last week’s meeting, Brown said: “It was a personnel issue and there’s due process with” Vigorito.

Read more about the matter in Thursday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.