Saturday, July 15, 2017
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 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 for allegedly falsifying training records of Youngstown water workers. Vigorito has pleaded innocent to those charges.
The week before Vigorito’s April 4 arraignment on those charges in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, the MVSD board placed him on paid administrative leave, converting that to unpaid administrative leave later that month.
His Class 3 water treatment license was suspended by the state.
The MVSD sells treated water from the Meander Reservoir to Youngstown and Niles, which distributes it to about 200,000 customers in Mahoning and Trumbull counties.
Martin F. White, Vigorito’s attorney, declined Friday to comment to The Vindicator about the MVSD board’s decision to eliminate his client’s job.
Vigorito is charged with falsifying training records of 25 Youngstown Water Department employees and a former city water department worker, who were enrolled in two-day continuing-education courses he was to teach in Youngstown for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency in May 2013 and September 2014.
Investigators from the Ohio Attorney General’s Office contend the workers did not complete the courses.
The 25 water department employees and the former worker pleaded guilty in March to falsifying their training hours and agreed to testify against Vigorito.
Under a plea agreement with the AG’s office, the defendants agreed to pay $2,000 in restitution to the city, plus a $1,000 fine and a $250 court administrative fee.
Some agreed to perform 50 hours of community service, but others opted to pay an additional $1,000 fine instead.
The OEPA revoked their certificates, and the city imposed pay cuts on them and required them to complete a business ethics course.
Vigorito was an OEPA-approved instructor, who taught the classes on his own time as a side job. The agency isn’t allowing him to teach the courses during the legal proceedings.
Not using Vigorito “has had minimal impact on the number of courses available to operators in Mahoning and Trumbull counties” as there are several other OEPA-approved training providers who can teach in the area, said Mike Settles, an agency spokesman.