Neighborhoods

Thursday, March 12, 2015

On Tuesday, March 10th, the Rocky Ridge Action Team met to discuss the status of blighted homes in the neighborhood, as well as to identify resident priorities for action during the coming year.

Formed in 2014 and comprised of city officials, community members, and YNDC staff, the team has already achieved impressive results. At a workday in 2014, five of the most blighted homes in the neighborhood were boarded, secured, and cleaned up by residents and volunteers. One severely deteriorated home was demolished by a private owner who donated funds to landscape the lot, plant trees, and install a bench. Another blighted home will be demolished this spring and the land transferred to an adjacent homeowner. Ten properties with code violations have been brought into compliance through collaborative efforts between YNDC and the City’s Code Enforcement department. One home was repaired for a low-income resident through YNDC’s Paint Youngstown program. Additionally, all seven non-functioning streetlights have been repaired or replaced by Ohio Edison.

More work is planned for 2015. A second neighborhood cleanup will be held on Saturday, May 16th to secure and clean up additional vacant properties. Councilman Mike Ray is working with YSU’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies to develop an inventory of Mahoning Avenue businesses in order to reach out to owners to discuss increased collaboration and how the City can assist in strengthening the corridor. The Rocky Ridge Neighborhood Association is planning a public art project to beautify an abandoned gas station in the neighborhood. The association has also been working with the City’s sign shop to create new street signs with the neighborhood logo, and it has engaged Youngstown Design Works to create unique banners that represent the spirit of the community. The new signs and banners will be installed on main streets through the neighborhood. Production of the neighborhood’s famed maple syrup is also starting this week. The City’s Code Enforcement Department is working to bring 18 additional blighted properties into compliance and the Mahoning County Land Bank is planning to demolish 12 vacant, severely deteriorated houses later this year. The next team meeting will be held in June.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Iron Roots Urban Farm has garden flats for sale!

The cost is $25 per flat, with 72 plants per flat. Pre-order a flat of mixed vegetables/herbs by April 25th, and it will be ready for planting on Memorial Day Weekend. For more information or to place an order, contact Danielle Seidita at (330)480-0423 or via email at dseidita@yndc.org.

• Each flat contains 72 ready-to-plant Vegetable/Herb plants
• Each contains a mix of up to 8 different vegetable or herb varieties
• You will get 9 plants of each variety you choose
• Ready for Pick-up the week before Memorial Day Weekend 2015 (Memorial Day is May 25, 2015)
• Order DEADLINE: April 25th, 2015 (Place your order for a garden flat on or before this date)

Choose 8 of these crops for your garden flat:

• Vegetables:
• Broccoli
• Cucumbers
• Eggplant
• Green beans
• Green Cabbage
• Green Onions
• Lettuce (Red or Green)
• Peppers (Hot or Sweet)
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Summer Squash
• Tomatoes (Cherry or Slicing)

Herbs:

• Basil
• Cilantro
• Parsley

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Talmer Bank & Trust has contributed $1000 to YNDC to support the administration of the Paint Youngstown program.

Talmer has helped YNDC to access thousands of dollars from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis Neighborhood Improvement Program to repair and rehabilitate eligible owner-occupied homes in the City of Youngstown over the past year. 

Sunday, March 15, 2015

On Tuesday, March 10th, YNDC finalized its sale of 3502 Glenwood Avenue in the Indian Village Neighborhood on Youngstown's South Side to first-time homebuyer Amanda Cresanto.

The fully rehabilitated 1,960 square foot single family home features a large fenced in backyard and two-car detached garage. The interior of the home includes 3 bedrooms and 1 bathrooms as well as a large living room, a formal dining room, a breakfast nook, a spacious kitchen, and a full basement. Amanda's brother, Steven Cresanto, also bought a rehabilitated home on Neosho Road in the same neighborhood late last year. 

On Thursday, March 5th, YNDC finalized its sale of 726 Linwood Avenue in the Idora Neighborhood on Youngstown's South Side to another first-time homebuyer. The fully rehabilitated 1,895 square foot single family home includes 4 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms as well as a large living room, a formal dining room, a spacious kitchen, full basement, and attached 1-car garage. 

City council will consider legislation Wednesday to repeal and replace the property-maintenance code and laws regarding demolition and unsafe buildings, but little actually will change, city officials say.

The new laws are similar to the current ones but are being done to streamline policies and have them in one location, Mayor John A. McNally said.

“The goal is more clarity for the public and the city officials who are responsible for enforcing them,” he said.

The “substance hasn’t really changed,” said Nicole Billec, an assistant city law director. “We had the authority to enforce these laws, but we’re making the ordinances more clear and concise.”

Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st, said having city laws on these issues “all over the place” isn’t effective.

“Having them together will make it easier for everyone to find everything,” she said. “It puts it all in a neat package.”

There are additional pieces of legislation that will result in changes to city law.

For example, council will consider an ordinance that allows the city to fine residents with grass or weeds grown in excess of 6 inches, rather than the current 8-inch limit. The proposal also states those limits are enforced only between April 1 and Oct. 31.

Proposals also are more specific on permitting agencies hired by the city to collect on demolition costs, property-maintenance violations and grass cutting, Billec said.

Earlier this month, the city hired Millstone and Kannesohn, a Liberty law firm, to handle notices and collections for those items as well as lot cleanups, boarding building services and delinquent water bills.

To go along with that, the administration is asking city council to allow the board of control to enter into a $102,168 annual contract, starting April 15, with the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. to supervise a new program to have about 20 low-income people, between age 18 and 24, cut grass, clean debris and illegal dumping sites, do light landscaping and board up vacant structures.

The city plans to purchase about $175,000 in equipment, including pickup trucks, lawn mowers and weed whackers, for those hired through the Mahoning and Columbiana Training Association, McNally said. MCTA is the administrative and fiscal agent for Federal Workforce Investment Act funds; the association will pay the workers with federal grant money.

The work would be done between June 1 and Aug. 15, he said.

“We’re working with MCTA to put young people to work and give them job training and experience,” McNally said.

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here.

In 2002, Jay Williams, Youngstown’s former community development director and former mayor, along with Youngstown State University and an urban development firm out of Toronto, Canada created a plan to set Youngstown on a path to fully realizing its downsize, embrace it and move forward with a positive outlook.

The plan, YT2010, took effect with an aggressive campaign to get the people of Youngstown excited and involved. It was plastered all over town on billboards, on television and in the newspaper. The plan even got national and international attention, receiving awards for being an innovative, enthusiastic and realistic plan.

Today, five years after the 2010 plan’s launch and few years since Youngstown lost its city chief planner Anthony Kobak, it seems as though the plan had lost its steam and fell by the wayside.

Thomas Finnerty, associate director of YSU’s Center for Urban and Regional Studies and creator of the YT2010 plan, reassured Youngstown that is not the case.

“It’s the framework, rules and guidelines. It’s all working — it’s not one of those things that you’re going to drive down the street and say ‘hey, that’s a 2010 thing,’” Finnerty said.

Finnerty made it clear that the YT2010 plan is still very much alive today.

The plan receives an update every five years to ensure the city’s needs are fulfilled. An update to the plan will come this year.

Ian Beniston — executive director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, a group dedicated to the renovation and revitalizing of neighborhoods throughout Youngstown — said the group would not exist without the 2010 plan.

“The most important part that [YT2010] plays is the fact that we exist. I think the 2010 project if nothing else, it helped create momentum to see something like this exist,” Beniston said.

Beniston has worked with his group to restore areas like the city’s South Side Idora neighborhood.

One goal of the YT2010 plan was for each side of the city to have a plan to guide their growth. The YNDC is responsible for making sure every neighborhood that wants a plan receives one.

On March 17, the changes to these neighborhoods, along with a new plan to revitalize downtown, will be unveiled to the public from the framework of the YT2010 plan by the Economic Action Group.

Two aspects of the plan that Finnerty said the public should know is that the YT2010 plan did not get put on a shelf and that it’s still working.

“You don’t have to hear about it, but it’s working,” Finnerty said.

To read the full story from The Jambar, click here.

City council members and the mayor engaged in a sometimes heated debate about a grass-cutting and property-cleanup program that included accusations of racial bias and preferential treatment to certain wards.

During Wednesday’s council finance committee meeting, Councilwoman Annie Gillam, D-1st, who is black, accused the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. of “giving the shaft to certain people all along, and I don’t want to be shafted again.”

The agency would be paid $102,168 a year to supervise and manage the program.

Mayor John A. McNally, who is white, said, “We have to put to bed this notion that YNDC is treating certain wards, certain areas of the city, unfairly.”

He added: “It gets to other issues about race. We all talk about it,” but “YNDC has helped all wards. This [program] will help every side of town.”

Councilwoman Janet Tarpley, D-6th, who is black, told McNally: “We can’t act like race isn’t an issue when it’s an issue,” and “YNDC has a history with some of the council people. It’s up to them to change it, not you. That’s the way we feel.”

Tarpley said when she goes to YNDC, “I’m the only African-American in the room.”

At one point in the meeting, McNally softly said that “some of council’s concerns are based on race.”

After the council meeting, he said, “I do have a concern, particularly as it related to YNDC, that the complaints that are directed to them are often based on YNDC ignoring certain wards of the city.” He’s not seen that, he said.

“I’m getting a little frustrated about that line of argument,” McNally said. “We need to put the issue to bed. The issues of race are things we deal with. It’s an ever-present issue. It’s always out there, but it’s particularly out there with YNDC” and it’s not true.

Among its responsibilities, YNDC serves as the city’s planner. McNally said the organization works throughout the city regardless of location and race.

Reached late Wednesday by The Vindicator, Ian J. Beniston, YNDC executive director, said, “I think [the accusations] are just totally false and not correct. Our staff, board and clients are representative of the city. Resources are equitably divided by wards.”

There wasn’t enough support for a vote from council Wednesday to approve the administration’s proposal to hire YNDC to supervise and manage about 20 low-income people, between age 18 and 24, to cut grass, clean debris and illegal dumping sites, do light landscaping and board-up vacant structures.

At McNally’s request, council will meet at 5 p.m. Tuesday to further discuss the contract, then meet later next week for a vote on the proposal.

The proposal includes the city purchasing about $175,000 in equipment, including pickup trucks, lawn mowers and weed whackers, for those hired for this work through the Mahoning and Columbiana Training Association, which will pay the workers with federal money.

Councilman Mike Ray, D-4th, who is white, said this program will save the city money over time as there is a significant savings in using this plan over hiring private contractors.

“We’re throwing this out for personal prejudice [because some] had a bad experience with an organization,” he said.

Both Ray and Councilman Paul Drennen, D-5th, who is white, said they’ve had great experiences with YNDC, and are confident the agency would do a much better job than private companies hired by the city to mow grass.

Tarpley insisted Ray has said “at certain times he has more people [who] pay more taxes in” his ward, and thus gets more attention.

Ray repeatedly said, “I’ve never said that.”

It resulted in the two shouting at each other with Tarpley insisting Ray has made the comment a number of times, including to The Vindicator, and Ray strongly denying it and challenging Tarpley to “show me that,” adding, “You’re ridiculous.”

When asked after the meeting about YNDC, Councilman Nate Pinkard, D-3rd, who is black, said he’s had a few discussions with agency officials about “getting my fair share. But they do good work.”

In response to a question about race concerns with the agency, Pinkard said, “I’m not a race-card player. I don’t see any race issues.”

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here.

Tempers flared at a finance committee meeting in Youngstown Wednesday night.

The topic of funding a program that would cut grass on vacant lots this summer quickly escalated and turned into an argument about race relations in the city.

Words were exchanged between 4th Ward Councilman Mike Ray and 6th Ward Councilwoman Janet Tarpley.

“That is an issue and it may not be real to you, but it is real to some of us,” Tarpley said. “Even if it is not an issue about race intentionally, but if it can be perceived, and perception is the truth, as an issue of race, then that is what it is.”

But Ray said he did not know where Tarpley’s comments were coming from.

Tarpley said the issue comes down to predominately African-American neighborhoods getting their grass cut a lot less than areas with higher percentages of white people living in them.

“When you are not at the table, you become part of the menu. And that is what I feel and that is what I think and that is what happened in this case,” Tarpley said.

First Ward Councilwoman Annie Gillam had similar concerns.

“Who is doing it and who is giving the shaft to certain people all along. And I don’t want to be shafted again. I want to know how this program is going to work in the beginning,” Gillam said.

The grass cutting proposal will be run by the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.

“I think there are perceptions and that group started off in one neighborhood and some people think they focus on that one neighborhood,” Ray said.

“We are all here in the city of Youngstown and for us to move forward, we can’t leave anybody behind,” Tarpley said.

The topic will be brought up again in a special meeting at 5 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.

No grass cutting can be done in the city until a contract with YNDC is approved. City council expects that to happen next week.

To see the full story from WKBN, click here.

Youngstown Mayor John McNally Finance Director Dave Bozanich voted to defer purchasing equipment for the city’s high grass cutting program.

They will revisit the issue next week.

Bozanich they delay is a matter of providing additional information to City Council.

Several council members questioned the methods used in the past to determine which lots were cut before others. That exchange quickly turned into a shouting match at Wednesday night’s finance meeting.

City leaders are looking to contract with the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation (YNDC) to handle grass cutting city-wide as opposed to being on of a dozen companies doing the work in the past.

“The intention, again, is that we could cut all un-maintained vacant homes where the owners aren’t maintaining them. We do that fairly systematically,” said Ian Beniston, YNDC executive director.

Beniston said YNDC would hire 15 to 20 young adults to do the work through the Mahoning/Columbiana Training Association and the local AmeriCorps program. While the city paid up to $50 for each lot that was cut in the past, the work would now be done for a just a fraction of the cost.

“And we will have people employed and gain valuable job experience and just give people something productive to do in the summer months, too,” Beniston said.

The Youngstown City Council Finance Committee is expected to meet again Tuesday evening. Officials hope to convince enough members to go along with the idea and approve it by the end of next week.

To see the full story from WKBN, click here.

Racism and preferential treatment given to those of a certain socioeconomic status — perceived or actual depending on who is talking — are longstanding issues in Youngstown.

They were publicly aired during a heated discussion Wednesday among city council members and Mayor John A. McNally on a grass-cutting and property-cleanup program.

While these issues have come up more in recent months, primarily comments made by the public at council meetings and an occasional response from a council member, this was the first time in my 10-plus years of covering city government that the conversation of race escalated so quickly among elected officials.

The topic was paying $102,168 a year to the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. to supervise and manage — along with two city officials — a program to give work to about 20 low-income “at-risk” people between 18 and 24 years old. The workers would cut grass, clean up lots and dump sites, board up vacant buildings and do some landscaping.

Councilwomen Annie Gillam, D-1st, and Janet Tarpley, D-6th, who are both black and are the key decision-makers on the legislative body, said YNDC has ignored their wards until they personally went to the agency’s officials to get their fair share.

Ian J. Beniston, YNDC executive director, who is white, strongly denies the accusations, saying “resources are equitably divided by wards.”

Tarpley said, “We can’t act like race isn’t an issue when it’s an issue.”

McNally, who is white, said city council needs to stop accusing YNDC of not treating certain areas fairly.

Acknowledging he was “a little frustrated,” McNally said, “The issues of race are things we deal with. It’s an ever-present issue. It’s always out there.”

To read the full story at Vindy.com, click here.