Proposals await OK

Proposals await OK

YOUNGSTOWN

City council will consider legislation Wednesday to lend up to $4 million at 0.25 percent interest to Campus Associates LLC, which is building a $16 million, 194-bed student housing/11,000-square-foot retail complex at the corner of Lincoln and Wick avenues on the Youngstown State University campus. The company must provide an irrevocable letter of credit from a lending institution to get the loan.

Also, council will consider a $500,000 water and wastewater grant for the project.

Council also will consider a $13,800 water and wastewater grant to Students Motivated by the Arts – SMARTS – at 25 E. Boardman St. for a $277,000 project.

Both proposals also need approval from the board of control. City council will discuss the items at a Monday committee meeting.

Charged after OD

BOARDMAN

A Youngstown woman faces a criminal charge for an apparent drug overdose.

Township police arrested Breona Layton, 24, of Southern Boulevard, on Thursday on a charge of inducing panic. The charge stems from an April 25 incident in which police, fire and ambulance workers were called to her home.

There, responders found a man attempting to wake a woman, later identified as Layton, who was unconscious in the bathroom. The man told police Layton had a history of heroin use.

She was revived with Narcan, a medication that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose. Layton reportedly denied using drugs. Police did not find any “obvious signs of drug usage” in the room.

Death ruled accidental

WARREN

The Trumbull County Coroner’s Office has ruled the Feb. 27 death of Rachel Cella, 27, of Edgewater Drive in Mecca Township, to have been accidental, the result of hypothermia.

Cella’s body was found in a ditch Feb. 27 along state Route 46, not far from her home and the Lake Tavern, where she walked away from a friend without her purse and cellphone late Feb. 25.

The coroner’s office said earlier there were no indications of foul play on her body, but a ruling on her death would have to wait until toxicology and other results had been obtained.

Cella’s mother reported Cella missing Feb. 26.

Trial to continue

YOUNGSTOWN

The aggravated murder, rape and kidnapping trial of David Hackett, 54, of New York Avenue, will continue Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

Hackett is accused of the October 2013 murder of Collena Carpenter, 30, of Homeworth in Columbiana County, who was found stabbed more than 70 times by West Avenue near the city water department building.

Judge John Durkin is hearing the case. Hackett is acting as his own lawyer.

Liberty Street to close for bridge work

LIBERTY

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today, Liberty Street under Interstate 80 will be closed for bridge construction. The detour will be Motor Inn Drive to Belmont Avenue.

After that closure, Liberty Street between Motor Inn Drive and Belmont Avenue will be restricted to one lane for bridge construction through late August, with traffic maintained by a traffic signal.

This work is part of a $91.5 million project to widen Interstate 80 between state Routes 11 and 193. The entire project is scheduled to be completed by late July 2018.

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