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MVSD hires new chief engineer
By Jordan Cohen
MINERAL RIDGE
After a search of more than six months, directors of the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District voted to hire Ramesh Kashinkunti of Cincinnati as its new chief engineer, effective Oct. 1.
After a two-hour executive session Wednesday, the board unanimously agreed to a six-year contract with Kashinkunti, who will earn $128,500 annually along with benefits. He did not attend the meeting.
Kashinkunti currently is assistant superintendent and business analyst for the Greater Cincinnati Water Works, where he has been employed in various capacities for 21 years, according to his profile on the social media site Linked-In. He is a licensed professional engineer and holder of a Class IV water operator license.
The MVSD requires a PE license for its chief engineer, while the Class IV license is a requirement of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. The sanitary district oversees Meander Reservoir, the primary drinking-water source for thousands in the Mahoning Valley.
“He will be the Ohio EPA operator of record,” said Atty. Thomas Wilson, the board’s legal counsel.
“There were 10 people who applied that had Class IV, but only two had both the Class IV and the PE,” Wilson added.
Since late February, David Tabak, a former MVSD chief engineer now with MS Consultants, a multistate engineering firm with an office in Youngstown, has been serving as chief engineer.
The board had contracted with the firm to secure Tabak’s services after Anthony Vigorito, longtime district employee who served as chief engineer for 18 months, failed to secure either the PE or Class IV licenses.
Vigorito was demoted to plant operations manager but later was placed on indefinite paid leave after his indictment on felony counts charging him with falsifying training records of 25 Youngstown Water Department employees. Vigorito has denied the charges.
Still unresolved is the status of $5 million in total refunds the board wants to issue to Youngstown, Niles and the village of McDonald. The two-member Court of Jurisdiction, which has to approve it, has questioned the wisdom of the refunds in a letter that asks if they “make financial sense.”
The topic was not on the meeting agenda but may have come up during the lengthy executive session that preceded the vote to hire Kashinkunti.
Before adjourning to the closed meeting, the board said “legal issues” may be among the topics.
“It’s still in litigation, so I’m not ready to discuss it in public,” Richard Hale of Niles, one of the MVSD board members, said after the meeting.