Valley will face challenges on economic front in 2017

We ring in 2017 in much the same way that we rang out 2016 – with a growing sense of uncertainty about the Mahoning Valley’s economic well-being.

There are so many unknowns as we venture into the new year that it would be foolhardy to publish an editorial steeped in optimism, as we have done year after year on this page each Jan. 1.

We aren’t suggesting that 2017 will be all pain and suffering, but it’s important not to lose sight of reality.

Let’s start with Jan. 23, when 1,245 employees of the General Motors compact-car assembly plant in Lordstown will lose their jobs. GM is eliminating the third shift because demand for the Chevrolet Cruze made at the plant has dropped. The reason: The relatively low cost of gas has increased demand for SUVs and trucks.

While GM executives in Detroit haven’t gone beyond announcing the layoffs, we do believe that the Mahoning Valley should launch an aggressive campaign this year to secure another product for the Lordstown plant after the Cruze model is discontinued. The economic importance of the assembly plant with its 4,500 employees (before the layoffs) cannot be overstated.

Another cause for concern in this region is the future of the Air Force Reserve base in Vienna Township. The eight C-130H transport planes that are assigned to the 910th Airlift Wing need to be upgraded with new avionics or replaced with the new C-130J models.

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, Rep. Bill Johnson of Marietta, R-6th, and Ohio’s two U.S. senators, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Rob Portman, have worked tirelessly to ensure that the base gets the upgraded aircraft. The congressmen also have been unrelenting in going after federal dollars to expand the base facilities and bolster the mission. Youngstown Air Reserve Station has the only fixed-wing aerial spray unit in the country.

Our concern about the base stems from the fact that the Pentagon is reportedly seeking additional money in order to assign the new aircraft to the YARS.

Government corruption

This year will once again turn the spotlight on the region’s history of government corruption when the former mayor of Niles, Ralph Infante, his wife, Judy, and a Niles city employee face trial on a slew of criminal charges, mostly relating to Infante’s tenure in office.

After the convictions in 2016 of Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally, a former Mahoning County commissioner; ex-county Auditor Michael Sciortino, and Youngstown Atty. Martin Yavorcik in the highly publicized Oakhill Renaissance Place criminal conspiracy case, many residents believed that sordid chapter in the region’s history had ended. It hasn’t, as the Infante case will show.

This year also will see local governments and other public entities, such as Youngstown State University, scrambling to re-prioritize spending as a result of state government freezing or, perhaps, cutting state funding.

Ohio Gov. John R. Kasich has warned that the next two fiscal years will be challenging and that all state departments and agencies will be forced to tighten their belts.

This news could not have come at a worse time for Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana county governments that are being forced to deal with the loss of sales-tax revenue related to the Medicaid program. The federal government has issued a ruling that exempts Medicaid from sales tax.

Finally, the Valley must come to terms with the reality that commercial air service remains an elusive goal. Last year, we had such high hopes when Great Lakes JetExpress began daily round-trip flights from Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

The service lasted just a month. That means it will now be 15 years since the Mahoning Valley last had sustained daily commercial air service out of Youngstown.

The bottom line: The airline failed to attract the passenger loads that would have made financial sense to keep going. It is noteworthy that Great Lakes JetExpress operated 49-seat jets, and yet could not make things work. Thus today, the region remains without an important economic-development tool.

While it is true that the Valley will face some major challenges in 2017, we aren’t throwing in the towel. As has been shown many times before, residents of this region love a good fight.