MVSD eliminates plant manager post in wake of Vigorito indictment

MINERAL RIDGE

The Mahoning Valley Sanitary District board eliminated the position of plant operations manager held by Anthony P. Vigorito, who is under indictment, accused of falsifying training records of Youngstown water department employees.

“The prudent decision was to eliminate the position because there’s no need to keep it on the organizational chart,” Matthew Blair, president of the MVSD board of directors, said Friday. “He was indicted and has been stripped of all of his licenses. But even if he wasn’t, we would have considered eliminating the position.”

The board expects to hire a chief engineer toward the end of this month, Blair said.

The board voted June 28 in support of a resolution to abolish the plant operations manager job, effective July 1, because the position is “not now necessary as those duties are effectively handled through the chief engineer and other management employees.” The resolution allows Vigorito to receive health insurance coverage from the MVSD through July 31.

Vigorito, 41, of Niles was demoted in January as MVSD chief engineer after failing for more than 18 months to obtain a Class 4 water engineer’s license needed for the job.

At the time, the district created the position of plant operations manager, which pays $77,000 annually, and selected Vigorito for the job with the board expecting he’d eventually get the license, Blair said.

On March 23, a Mahoning County grand jury indicted Vigorito on two counts each of forgery, tampering with records and falsification of training documents after officials discovered training records for Youngstown water workers were falsified. Vigorito has pleaded innocent to those charges.

Read more about the situation in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.