Thursday, October 25, 2018
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Frank Fuda of Niles has been a Trumbull County commissioner since 2007, was Niles councilman from 1990 to 2007 and was a Cleveland schoolteacher for 37 years.
He overcame a challenge from Hubbard council member Lisha Pompili Baumiller in the Democratic primary and now faces Republican Mary Williams of Cortland in the general election.
Technically, he is also challenged by independent candidate Niki Frenchko of Warren, but Frenchko has indicated she supports Fuda and ran in part because of her opposition to Williams and Pompili Baumiller.
Fuda prides himself on being at the commissioners’ office a lot – to help solve problems the public brings to him, such as not knowing what government agency to contact.
“People don’t know who to go to,” Fuda said during a recent interview with The Vindicator’s Editorial Board.
Lately, Fuda has spent a lot of time focused on the county’s public transportation service, called Trumbull Transit, which uses federal and local money to provide low-cost rides through the company Community Bus Services.
Trumbull Transit has struggled recently because its administrator, Mark Hess, retired. The commissioners hired Atty. Rebecca Gerson to replace Hess and also serve as county administrator.
Gerson resigned after several months and returned to her law practice, and Hess came back temporarily while the commissioners and their human resources director, Richard Jackson, worked to find someone else.
The county commissioners hired Michael Salamone recently to replace Hess, but Fuda is concerned the Trumbull Transit Board, which oversees operations, is in need of an overhaul.
Fuda says the county has completed more than $50 million in infrastructure improvements such as sewer lines since he took office, but there’s $35 million to $40 million more needed, and he wants to be there to see them through.
Williams has had an unexpected challenge while campaigning for county commissioner. She’s been battling esophageal cancer, but says it hasn’t stopped her.
Williams got 44 percent of the vote when she ran in 2016 against Democratic Commissioner Dan Polivka, who got 50 percent of the vote. Independent Todd Johnson, a Warren pastor, got 6 percent.
Williams is owner of the bookkeeping company Accounting Relief.
In a Vindicator interview, she criticized the current commissioners for not following through on suggestions made by a citizens committee that examined the county’s finances last year.
She thinks the commissioners should have produced a “score card” that shows what they have done on each of the suggestions.
“There were really great ideas, and almost none were executed,” Williams said.
Williams, who is a member of the Lakeview schools and Trumbull Career and Technical Center boards of education, said public officials, in general, are not doing a good enough job of getting people into skilled trades because there are a lot of skilled-trades jobs going unfilled.
She would also like to see more females getting trained in skilled trades.
Williams says she is running partly because “people are just tired of the same old thing” from the county commissioners. Fuda and Polivka each have been in office more than 10 years.
Frenchko, who is a business owner and real-estate saleswoman, said she decided to run as in independent for commissioner because at the time of the independent deadline, Pompili Baumiller seemed to have a shot at defeating Fuda in the primary, meaning the two candidates in the general election would have been Pompili Baumiller and Williams.
She was not comfortable with either of those choices, Frenchko said.
Frenchko is a member of the Trumbull County Senior Services Advisory Council, which recommends to the commissioners how to spend money from the county senior citizens levy.
Frenchko believes its improper senior levy money is used to run Trumbull Transit because it serves nonsenior citizens and senior citizens.
The county prosecutor’s office, however, wrote an opinion the practice is allowable, but prosecutors have also asked the Ohio Attorney General’s Office to also give a formal opinion.