3 strong candidates face voters in city’s 3rd Ward

Residents of Youngstown’s 3rd Ward should consider themselves lucky this spring as they are blessed with three strong and talented candidates to represent them in city government.

The 3rd Ward, which encompasses much of the city’s North Side, remains home to some of Youngstown’s finer legacy neighborhoods, but it also includes sizable patches of urban blight, property abandonment and high crime and poverty rates.

Therefore thoughtful, responsible and hands-on leadership will be required to represent the diverse challenges that confront the 3rd Ward. We find it probable that any of the three Democratic Party candidates seeking the nomination in the May 7 primary election likely could rise to those challenges.

Those candidates are Denice Neal-Davis, a 1973 graduate of the former Rayen School; Darian Rushton, a 1997 Rayen graduate; and Samantha Turner, a 2003 graduate of Rayen. In addition to their common alma mater, they also share common visions for the city’s North Side.

Each shares a sincere desire to attract new business to the ward, update and improve roads and other infrastructure and to serve as an active and direct liaison to the ward’s diverse constituency.

Neal-Davis, who returned to Youngs-town about three years ago after having spent most of her adult life in Chicago, has a track record of 30 years in public service as an assistant and chief of staff to former Chicago Alderwoman Helen Shiller and as director of community affairs for former Democratic U.S. Rep. Bobby L. Rush.

Among her priorities would be to aggressively seek a viable tenant for the shuttered North Side Regional Medical Center, perhaps a large trade school for laid-off workers from the ward and the region. She also pledges to work for stricter housing-code enforcement, improved police-community relations and more vigilance in razing abandoned buildings throughout the North Side.

Though her goals are admirable and her passion sincere, her many decades of living 400 miles outside of the city would make her less familiar with the ward’s metamorphosis in recent years than her challengers.

In addition, her comment to The Vindicator Editorial Board that she would tackle the city’s budgetary crisis head-on but would hate to see any worker lose his or her job reminds us of the attitude of Mayor Jamael Tito Brown. We’ve criticized him for that attitude as it fails to recognize that layoffs must be considered if any meaningful dents in the city’s projected sky-high deficit are to be accomplished.

LIFELONG CITY RESIDENT

Rushton, an advanced medical support assistant at the Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic on Belmont Avenue, has lived in the ward he seeks to represent his entire life.

Rushton is adamant about his desire to stimulate commercial development such as grocery stores and community centers and food banks in the ward. “There is no place to go,” he lamented to the Editorial Board.

We admire the strong priority Ruston also places on youth development in his ward and throughout the city. He proposes creation of youth centers with programming to help youth develop positive citizenship skills. Given his volunteer work with various youth organizations, we believe he’d be more than capable of achieving that admirable leadership goal.

But when it comes to years of proven community service, involvement in a diverse array of community/neighborhood organizations and articulation of a robust and specific platform of concrete goals, candidate Turner edges out both Rushton and Neal-Davis.

Turner, director of operations for Youngstown Area Goodwill Industries, said she believes economic development must be “reinvented” by improving businesses along the main corridors, removing blight and attracting businesses by creating incentives. She is particularly interested in improving the Belmont Avenue corridor and working with the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments to achieve constructive results.

She also seeks to improve the neighborhood infrastructure, including sidewalk and street repairs, supporting beautification projects and attracting new homeowners and helping them in their transition by connecting them with organizations and resources.

The Vindicator endorses Turner for the 3rd Ward council seat. Her nomination would be tantamount to election as no Republicans have filed in this race and independent or write-in candidates would be long shots.